Seasonal Delicacy: Akebi
Seasonal Delicacy: Akebi
It’s akebi season. A wild Japanese vine, the fruit, when unripe, looks absurdy like dangling potatoes. But when ready, a deep, vertical split occurs, revealing the white fruit inside. The local crows love it, and the orchard floor is annually strewn with empty cases.
This autumn, however, has seen a big (soon to be revealed!!!!) project in the orchard, human presence there lessening the avian impact, and we’ve managed to snatch the fruit just at the right time.
Potato splitz
Take that, crows. Victory! Huzzah!!!
However…
The taste of Victory is somewhat akin to the taste of lumpy glue. With pebbles… Akebi is not a champion fruit, instead it’s a buch of inedible seeds held together by a disappointingly tasteless paste. Quite why it’s classed as a delicacy is beyond me. And add to that fact that it closely resembles one of the funkier inhabitants of the copost heap and this Victory! comes even more Pyrrhic:
Akebi
.
Stag beetle pupae
Bah! Go on, crows. You can ‘ave ‘em.
Kitchengardenjapan
My MiL loves these, though, like you I can’t really see the appeal. However, her appreciation of the gloopy tasteless puree stems from the fact that it was one of the few ways she could get to eat anything sweet as a kid 65 years ago in Tohoku.
I was lucky, I had curly wurlies instead.
Gotcha. Great comment. It’s all relative I suppose…
But did she by any chance enjoy pupae, too????? (Semi) Serious question, yo – I know peeps did/do eat silkworm larvae…
Curly Wurlies, eeeee, neh. More of a Monster Munch man misself
T
I can only assume that your captions for the pupae and akebi photos are mislabeled. Or conversely, the pictures are not in line with the captions. Perspective. That, or the captions are correct, and you are holding Mothra quality offspring in the palm of your hand!
Is akebi similar in taste/texture to yucca/cassava?
The captions are correct, Tavis.
The pupae are that size, though. Monsters. That pic was taken a few days ago, but next spring is collecting time. We collect them with Learn and Grow students, the J-kids love ‘em.
Cheers,
T
ewwww …. I that that worm. I still remamber when saw my first. lol… I really couldn`t eat that if it loskes like the worm
Bring the kids in spring, they’ll love watching them turn into beetles….