Random Picture #117

When I left Japan, my Japanese friends and students were incredibly generous toward me. I will forever be touched by their gestures and generosity. Many people gave me snacks because they are the sort of thing that they knew I'd enjoy, but also because food gifts are very common in Japan in general. The picture above was a "care package" that a student sent to me from her home town during my final week in Tokyo. Her home area is Miyazaki and she had given me a hyuga-natsu fruit and cookies before and I loved both. She gave me these as other souvenirs of her home area.

From lower left clockwise, these are: hyuga-natsu and mango "jellies" (like a cross between gelatin and pudding), natural cheese cookies, hyuganatsu sandwich cookies, hyuga-natsu tea (delicious and tangy), and mochi sweets filled with red bean paste (daifuku). I drank the tea since I had a cold the last week that I was there and ate the pudding, but took the rest home with me to enjoy during my first month back. If you visit Japan and have a chance to sample some hyuga-natsu treats, I definitely recommend giving them a try.

Hyuga-natsu Chocolate Sand Cookies

One of my students grew up in Miyagi Miyazaki prefecture in Japan and introduced me to a fruit which is a specialty of that area. The fruit, which she gave me several months ago, is called hyuga-natsu and it looks like a yellowish orange. She told me that it was "very sour" and that I'd have to put sugar or honey on it to eat it. Give my experience with natsu mikan (summer tangerine), I was pretty skeptical about like hyuga-natsu. I'm really not a fan of loading my fruit up with sugar anyway, so I decided to try it as it was. It was delicious and tasted like a cross between a lemon and a grapefruit with only modest sour notes. I thoroughly enjoyed the fruit and told her so. As a result, she brought me this box of hyuga-natsu cookies the following week.

The generosity of my students often amazes me, and I've found that those who make lower incomes are often the most generous. She bought these cookies at the Sheraton Hotel, but I'm not sure which one. One thing I am certain of, however, is that they were not cheap. They have the look and feel of an expensive souvenir. The question was only if they had the taste.

Each cookie is a langue du chat type of cookie which is crispy and buttery. Sandwiched between the delicate crispy layers is firm white chocolate filling flavored with the citrus flavor of hyuga-natsu. Since I've had the actual fruit, I can make a comparison. These do not actually capture the true essence of the fruit, but they are delicious and carry tones of lemon and orange. They are excellent cookies of the finest quality and definitely worth every fattening bite. I say they are probably fattening based on their buttery nature rather than from really knowing the calorie count. Souvenirs in Japan rarely offer nutrition data and these were not an exception.

If you see these cookies, buy them. It's a no brainer that they will be enjoyable to anyone who loves a high quality buttery crispy cookie or citrus sweets. The tricky part is, of course, getting to a Sheraton that actually sells them.