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[lumberlady]

[Lunatia's resident centaur lady is back on screen, and this time she's sharing the spotlight with... a table full of fresh vegetables? Still a bit dirty, fresh from the soil, good ol' vegetables... That Konoha bows over to start out.]

Hello, everyone! My name is Konoha... I'm a jinba, or a "centaur" if you want... I'm from Echigo in Japan, but lots of people say I'm from the past...

[She's just going to do the same introduction every time, counting off details on her fingers to make sure she gets all the good points... there's too many people on this thing and she doesn't check it enough to keep track... oops. Anyway-]

I wanted to ask people some questions about food! My husband and I have set up a little farmstead, but the crops are growing, um, way faster than they really ought to be... [we're just going to speed past the blush] and it's not like we actually have to work for money here, so I was thinking of not just taking the crops to market but... serving meals at the house? Or sending them to people elsewhere in the city? I don't know, but I've met a lot of people here who said they just eat food from the stores, and I know those are really convenient, but it can't be better than a home cooked meal, can it?


[Look at this big turnip! Isn't it healthy looking?! Don't you just want to eat it?? Konoha smiles, making the root vegetable dance around the screen.]

So... can I ask you some questions about what sort of food you like? Or what kind of things you miss from your home? Maybe what they make in your country with vegetables? If you give me some of your time, I'll send you some fresh ones as a "thank you"-

Promise!

[One last bow... and she and the turnip sign off.]

Comments

[hunksmash]

It's pretty big, yeah. I'm from a small island, but the mainland..? Woof. Huge.

American versions of dishes are usually kinda... I don't wanna call 'em all simplified, but that's the case a lot of the time. Culturally, there's a greater tendency towards convenience, both in terms of ingredients and preparation techniques.

So... With Japanese food, for example, a lot restaurants in America are hibachi joints, which... Don't even involve what a hibachi actually is, I think? It's just meat and rice done up on a giant griddle. And sushi's popular, too, so... I guess there's that? There's this huge amount of other stuff that gets skipped over, y'know?

[lumberlady]

So they only eat grilled meat and sushi? I didn’t even think sushi was that popular...

[give it another hundred years, Konoha...]

But... there’s so much more than that! Would people want to eat what got skipped over, though? I don’t know how to make sushi... I can buy salted mackerel in town but most of our fish are river fish...

[hunksmash]

I think sushi's more of a modern thing, maybe? [ She's wearing old-fashioned clothes. Is this a time travel situation? ] Refrigeration helps a lot.

Udon and ramen is pretty common, too, and occasional bouts of tempura and stuff. And the Japanese population is heavier in some areas, so there's more authentic stuff there, but... Yeah. A lot of stuff's region dependent and kinda tapered down.

Let's just say I'm glad I'm not from the continent. Hawai'i has it made, food-wise.

[lumberlady]

If I don't know it but people say it's Japanese, I usually just tell myself "must be a 'modern' thing"! ... Or an Edo thing.

[So it worked by her!]

What is the food like in Hawai'i?

[hunksmash]

Fantastic. It's a lot of culture mixing. Polynesian, Southeast and East Asian, Portuguese... It developed pretty separate from the rest of the country and is still pretty different.

Lotta seafood, pork, rice, taro, coconut, pineapple... That kinda stuff!

[lumberlady]

I don’t know a lot of those words, but it sounds fun. And someone in my last world taught me about pineapple and coconut... so it must be a hot place!

Right?!

[hunksmash]

Right. Tropical island!

Hard to go wrong on a tropical island, really.

[lumberlady]

Is there no winter there at all? When does the earth rest?

[hunksmash]

There's a period where the weather's slight cooler, if that counts.

[ ... Wait, wait. ]

Uh. Sorry, what's this resting bit?

[lumberlady]

... The earth has to rest, doesn't it? So that it can work hard in spring and grow all sorts of new things!

[see: how a medieval peasant understands science concepts]

[hunksmash]

Oh. That's, uh... [ That's not how any of this works. ] Well. Different places experience different weather patterns, and the plant and animal life everywhere has evolved to suit those surroundings. So things in tropical areas either don't need to 'rest' or have different methods of doing so.

... Something like that, I guess.

[lumberlady]

Huh...

[It doesn't quite make sense, but...]

Well, you would know best! That must be nice!