| It's the Season for "Imonikai!" Sendai's Fall Tradition. | Reporter: Chieko Miura and Nobuaki Miura  Click here to seeChieko and Nobuaki's profile! |
 üúWe held the imonikai here. |
"Imonikai!" (a Japanese outdoor cooking event) is held on the banks and dry beds of rivers every year from the middle of September to the end of October. In this report we'll tell you about "Imonikai!" which is one of the fall events that is held in Sendai and Yamagata. The ingredients are pork, kon-nyaku (a gelatin made from a plant root), taro (a kind of potato), tofu, burdock root, carrot, onion, Japanese radish, champignon, Chinese cabbage, and miso. The Sendai version is flavored with pork and miso but in Yamagata they use beef and soy sauce. The ingredients are cut into bite size pieces and put into a big pot. The hard ingredients such as taro and burdock roots go in first. When this mixture comes to a boil the rest of the ingredients are added. After the vegetables become soft, miso is added. For that real fall feeling, eat it together with chestnut rice. It╒s the best! I hope you all try making this fall dish. We held our imonikai at a dry river bed of the Hirose river with mom╒s friends from the company. We gathered twigs and dried leaves and also brought a bucket from the river to extinguish the fire. We were ready to go! Although we lit the balled-up paper with a lighter the branches wouldn╒t catch fire. Finally Dad said, ╥Let me use the lighter╙ and started the fire without any problems. The pot started to boil so we tried tasting it. It was a little salty but was tasty nonetheless. We helped ourselves with a small bowl but there were some people using a much larger bowl and having seconds. Everyone ate saying how tasty it was. We all said we should do this again next year and said good-bye. |
 üúPut all the ingredients in a big pot and help yourselves. |
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Chieko says "Be careful with fires and don't forget to throw away the garbage!" Wouldn't it be great to hold an imonikai next to clean river bank? Let's all remember to keep our manners and respect nature. Even when it becomes too cold to go out you can try having an imonikai with lots of people at your own house. |  |