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Body
●Basashi
Basashi is very famous in Kumamoto. Basashi is meat of horse and we can eat it raw. We often eat basashi boiled too.
The origin is Kiyomosa Kato. He ate meat of horse because the food had run out and he spread it in Kumamoto.
People who live in Kumamoto eat Basashi the most of Japan. There are many restaurants which we can eat Basashi in Kumamoto. For example "Sakuraya" this restaurant is very famous as we can eat delicious basashi in Kumamoto. Many restaurant has Basashi as menu and we can eat it anywhere.
●Ikinari-dango
Mother and grandmother on the periphery of Kumamoto city made ikinari-dando, so Ikinari-dango is a homemade sweets.
There are some origins of Ikinari-dango.For example, it means that people can make it at once for short time and it means that when visitor comes to a house suddenly, people can serve them it at once. Other mean is that people makes raw potatoes into Ikinari-dango.
The former Ikinari-dango is different from the present Ikinari-dango. When people make Ikinari-dango at home and store, they use sweet potatoes and adzuki beans now, but people made it without adzuki beans in the past.
There are many stores that sell Ikinari-dango in Kumamoto. The price of Ikinari-dango is about 100 yen, so it is not expensive. People who live in Kumamoto say Ikinari-dango “Ikinari-dago”. Dado is dialect, so dago and dango is the same mean.
●Karashi renkon
Kumamoto feudal lord Tadatoshi Hosokawa was sickly by nature, but when the priest whom there was once visited him to eat a lotus root. Therefore it is said that Tadatoshi ate with pleasure when checkmate the barley miso which mixed sum mustard powder with the hole of the lotus root which Kiyomasa Kato cultivated as emergency rations in a moat outside Kumamoto Castle, and Heigoro who was the providor of the feudal clan gives to Tadatoshi the thing which can be available, and coated of flour ground from barley and broad beans powder and the egg yolk in rapeseed oil.
Because the lotus root was superior as blood making medicine, and there being appetite increase action in mustard, the section that cut a lotus root into round slices again resembled the family coat of arms (a nine-star crest) of the Hosokawas, it was done with cooking not to be removed from the premises, but generally the manufacturing method reached it from the Meiji Restoration, and it was it in the one of Kumamoto noted products.
●Jindaiko
Jindaiko
“Okashi no Kobai ” sells many Kumamoto sweets and Jindaiko is one of the Okashi no Kobai’s sweets.
An Origin of Jindaiko has something to do with history. When warriors fights with enemies, people played Jindaiko to inspire eagerness for the fight and steer them to victory. An Original mean of Jindaiko is a musical instrument like a drum.
Appearance of Jindaiko is a sweet bean jelly, but it isn’t a sweet bean jelly. Jindaiko has rice cake inside of it. Jindaiko is good for souvenirs.
People can buy Jindaiko at department stores and airplane, station. Anyway, you can buy it all over Kumamoto.
●Musyagaeshi
"Musyagaeshi" is one of Kumamoto sweets. This is one of the foods which eveyone likes. Kobai sells it too.
It was named connected with the stone wall of Kumamoto castle. There is Cawahaan of original manufacturing method in pie.The overlap is looks like a stone wall.
We can feel the nice texture and sweetness. It has a good balance so it is very delicious. We can eat it anywhere in Kumamoto.
●Taipiien
Taipien is one of Chinese food, but it become the positioning of the local cooking without being seen only in Kumamoto. Because it is looked as a menu of the Chinese restaurant universally in local Kumamoto, and even a school meal is started popular cooking, there are a lot of Kumamoto citizens of the prefecture whom misunderstand when there "is the Taihei swallow in the all over Japan".
●Water melon
Water melon is one of special prodacts in Kumamoto. Ueki is especailly famous place. It came from the west and they were eating and drinking it as water. They are growing it more than 270years ago in Kumamoto. Kumamoto is production top of Japan now. Watermelon is kind of Cucurbitaceae and it almost made from water. The color of rind are black and green but there are two kinds color inside, its are red or yellow. Red is more famous color and we often eat red fruit. When we eat it, we put salt on watermelon because we can feel more sweetness of watermelon.
●Noodle
Kumamoto noodle
There are many stores of “Kumamoto ramen (Kumamoto noodle)” in Kumamoto. Almost people associate the name of “Tonkotsu ramen” with Hakata ramen. Kumamoto ramen is one of Tonkotsu ramen, but it is differs from Hakata ramen. Kumamoto ramen has some distinction.
1. Noodle is thick and a spring of noodle is rougher than Hakata ramen.
2. Kumamoto ramen uses soup, which blend Tonkotsu with carcass.
*Tonkotsu is bones of pigs
The taste of Kumamoto ramen is a mild and women also likes it.
I introduce some store which famous for Kumamoto ramen.
*Keika There is many kind of ingredient.
*Komurasaki This is one of the birthplaces of Kumamoto ramen
*Kokutei Many people who don’t live in Kumamoto come here to eat it.
●Japanese Pears
Arao- Pear is famouse as a jumbo pear. There are many kind of pear and it is "Niitaka". Niitaka is called the King of the pear, and it is very sweet, and there is much water. It is size of the head of the child with the big thing according to the reputation very greatly.
●Strawberries
My town is famous for strawberries. Many people grows them in my town and many people comes to my town to eat strawberries and buy goods of strawberries likes wines and jams and so on. There are 4 types of strawberries in my town. These are "Hinoshizuku(ひのしずく）" and "Akahoppe(紅ほっぺ）", "Toyonoka(とよのか)", "Sagahonoka(さがほのか)" and These are very sweets and delicious. There is "Y-Box" which sells many goods in my town and People can eat strawberries a lots there if you pay money.
