Today my host mother took me to the monthly morning market near her tofu factory outside Nagoya. There were rice, vegetables, and various types of tofu on sale. I learned about tsumihoudais for the first time – you pay a fixed amount of money and stack as much food on top of one another as possible, and leave with the amount you manage to stack without the whole thing falling over at the end. There were donut tsumihoudais and pudding (in closed containers of course) tsumihoudais, but they ran out of food when I got to the start of the queue so I could not have a go. Definitely next time…
People were pounding fresh mochi (sticky rice) to serve to the market-goers for free, too. For me, shivering in the cold morning air after journeying for an hour without breakfast, the bowl of hot sweet red bean soup and warm mochi balls was nothing short of heaven. I think its taste has been burnt onto my tongue.
Anh Nguyen
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<div><span style="color: rgb(29, 29, 29); font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237);">Anh hailed from Hanoi, Vietnam and is currently a sophomore at Haverford College, Pennsylvania. She plans to major in Computer Science, but decided to take a non-CompSci semester abroad before coming back to it in her junior year (after all, when else will she get the chance?). In her free time she enjoys reading, exploring new places and new types of food, people-watching, as well as reading food blogs, planning to make every single dish that catches her eye, and then completely forgetting about them. She is as excited to blog about her journey as she is about her Spring semester in Nagoya!</span></div>
