Soba Noodles: Nepal Soba Flowers Bloom in Japan

Japanese cuisine booming globally, the world's good livers may know Udon or wheat noodles but not quite Soba or buckwheat noodles. In Japan, there are such bunch of people "SOBA CRAZE" or those who definitely prefer buckwheat noodles to wheat noodles for the touch on the tongue and the feel "through" the throat.

This desk happens to be one and would travel any distance for a fine basket of soba. A basket of quality soba is quite dear - often more so than a regular steak lunch. Why? Because the quality of buckwheat counts.

Today's episode tells of a person who cultivated open a broad expanse of field, 1500 square meters, at the foot of Mt. Sawaguchi to grow Nepal soba.

Yukihito Sato, 61, is an experienced mountaineer guide with several attacks on Himalayan mountains to his credit. When he climbed Mt. Dhaulagiri in Nepal in 2001, he met a farmer at the foot of the mountain who gave him a pack of Nepal soba seeds. He brought it back home and sowed in his field. Each time he revisited Nepal he bought home packs of soba seeds and kept on sowing.

Now today,  Nepal soba flowers are in full bloom all over his field, 20 days or so sooner than usual, ready for harvest late this month. Grown insecticide-free, his soba flour should call for a high wholesale price and still higher at the soba house - quality Tartary Soba.

To enjoy the best of soba noodles, one should eat it chilled. Lift up a portion, dip only the tip into a sauce, and slurp - noisily too. Ask not why slurp - it's part of the culture.

A conte to conclude the episode:

There lived a soba craze in the heart of Edo (Tokyo today) who was proud to be a soba craze and always dipped only the tip of soba noodles each and every time to enjoy the fragrance of soba.

At his death bed, his wife begged for his last words. He sighed and murmured: "Gee, I wish I had once dipped my soba deep into the sauce pot...."