Last Thursday and Friday I attended the Okinawa JET Mid-Year Conference in Okinawa City. Yes, I've only been here three months and that is not the midway point of any year.
I've been working on a solar oven for two months (look forward to that post), but have been anxious to get baking. So when I found an oven for sale on the English language Okinawan classifieds site, I made an offer.
My friend Shu was kind enough to fit the oven pick-up into the schedule at 6:30am on Friday morning. That afternoon another friend, Jaimee, was nice enough to haul me and the oven back to Naha. Then a taxi driver was nice enough to accept my money to get me to the port.
Today I made my inaugural cinnamon rolls and cookies. You can see in the picture that the cinnamon rolls got a little dark, but the cookies are the real story. The brown sugar had a strange consistency when I packed 3/4 cup and mixed it in. The color was right, but the sugar was almost spongy. Certainly not sticky. Lacking curiosity, I didn't taste it. But I did taste the finished dough, which was pretty tangy. I wrote it off as the result of using all foreign ingredients (me thinking globalization of food hasn't hit Japan yet...). When I was preparing the cinnamon and brown sugar for spreading on the cinnamon rolls, I licked my finger and realized that my brown sugar was in fact something opposite of sweet. I instinctively looked at the package, which initially brought no help. But on the back were pictures showing this substance being poured into a pot of water, then adding vegetables and cooking.
My friend Amy looked it up and here's what Wikipedia says:
"Rice bran finds particularly many uses in Japan,
where it is known as nuka (糠; ぬか). Besides using it for pickling,
Japanese people also add it to the water when boiling bamboo shoots,
and use it for dish washing."
5 comments:
As Shu suspected, you really did get baking almost immediately, huh? But the nuka...eto...that wasn't the 'sugar' you bought that time in Naha, was it?
No, Kerri, I wish I could blame it on you, but this brown sugar purchase was all mine. I can't wait to go back to the Co-op and see where I made my mistake. I swear this nuka was in the brown sugar aisle, mixed right in, but now that seems doubtful.
Dave, I have to say that was extremely funny to read. Too bad it wasn't as easy as the イースト purchase a few weeks back. Live and learn...and taste.
...that was me.
dave先生、i just found your blog on your facebook profile and have been having fun reading through it! this entry is my favorite. :D
i fully expect to have a full conversation in japanese with you the next time we see each other!
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