Imoni Kai

I've eaten Imoni 6 times so far this year, but today's bowl was the loneliest, after it had promised to be so much fun.

Let me see now....there were two double header weekends when I had it twice, once on Saturday and once on Sunday. Wait, hold on, first things, I should explain what it is. Imoni is a local stew, although it's not thick like Irish stew, more soupy and lumpy. It's renowned across Japan, and if you want to eat Imoni, then Yamagata is the place to do it. In August they hold the biggest Imoni Kai (Imoni party) in Japan by Mamigasaki river, feeding some 30,000 people from a giant bowl they ladle and mix with mini diggers greased with butter.

The stew itself has, in more or less equal quantities- fatty beef (just how Japanese people love it), thick leeks (Negi), Devil's Tongue- a gelatinous and tasteless substance- and of course the legendary Imoni potato. It's stickier than your average King Edward or Maris Piper, halves reluctantly falling apart as you pincer it between chopsticks. After that, it's soy, sake, water, some other stuff. So much for Shouyuu Aji (i.e. taste or flavour). Miso is quite a different beast, but that can be dealt with another time.

So I had Imoni at the old school nurse, Ito-Sensei's place, during which I stared at her daughter Tomoko for long periods of time, then there was an Imoni Kai with the Yamagata Univeristy Frisbee guys by the river, at which I met Tomoko's boyfriend and I felt a little lighter and not one teeny sad at all but glad, strangely. There was one up in Sakata, there was one on Tuesday this week inside the Washington Hotel with the City Hall people, there was another my mate Shinsuke organised on a day to hot to walk in the sun, let alone eat steaming hot stew. We ate it standing ankle deep in the river water, until we finished and jumped in kit and kaboodle.

Then there was today's, at Osato Shogakko (Elementary School). I'd been looking forward to it for ages- the kids form groups, big kids little kids all jumbled up and they each have their own pot that they each manage. I went along last year, didn't take a camera, kicked myself. The Imoni itself isn't great, but that's not the point- the kids made it. I think the Imoni potatoes they grow too, so they see it through from plant to pig-out.

But today I had lessons at another Elementary School it looked like rain it rained they started early at Osato and by the time I arrived they'd all finished and were busy washing up their pots. I had my bowl, saved just for me, in the teacher's room. They kids were all outside- it was play-time, and I heard one teacher say it'd all worked out perfectly, the kids had just finished washing up.