Ippoippo

Japan is a market pioneer again: the first industrialised nation with no butter

Is this the first signs of Market failure?
As the article sub heading states…

An explosion in grain prices and a slide away from self-sufficiency is causing global crisis. And wealth is no guarantee of insulation

Another story, which also mentioned in passing

Yesterday, Japan was forced to secure emergency butter shipments as the rocketing price of feed and resulting drop in milk production has left the country’s supermarkets with sudden shortages of a basic foodstuff.

A bit of tongue is all you need to make a lady happy :)

Heee heee, school boy snigger!

Seriously though, Yuko is pretty chuffed at the moment. In Japan, cow tongue is a very popular meat for cooking with, especially on Barbecues and other Korean type cooking.
So, in Japan it’s very expensive. Beef is expensive anyway, but tongue is really expensive here.
However, in the UK beef is cheaper than Japan. But that’s when you compare sirloin steak with Japan.
When it comes to tongue, most Brits seem to shy away. It looks like we only eat fillet, steak and anything you can roast. Tongue…. nah we don’t do that in Britain.

So, Yuko decided to ask the butcher in the farm shop where she works if he can get some cow tongue for us. No problem. He can’t sell it usually so he could get it easily for us and changed only £2.50 for it. In Japanese money, that works out as 530 Yen at the moment.

やすいぃぃぃぃーーーーーーー [Yasuiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

… or in another words…. “F**king ‘ell, that’s really cheap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I guess I can’t complain. I really liked tongue cooked Japanese style and it’s a good way to get beef on the cheap.

(Message to ‘M’ and ‘G’. You ate tongue when we went to Korean BBQ place during our wedding festivities weeked…)

The last couple of weeks have been quite busy in work… hence the lack of posting. This week is the last ‘big push’, so it will be nice to get that out of the way.

Meanwhile, Yuko and I have been reaping the rewards of our gardening, sampling some of the potatos, turnips, various herbs, various salads and onions that we’ve been growing.
We’ve haven’t eaten much of it yet, but our Kale plantation has grown really well, and the peas and beans are on the way now too. Some of the oriental greens have now been planted for later on in the year.
All good stuff anyway.

Next month, Yuko and I are also off on holiday to Italy (Florence and Bologna). Now, since jetting off there is somewhat ‘un-eco’ (going there is un-eco too I admit), we’ll be going by train instead. So, it’s off to London by train, then hope on the Eurostar to Paris. Then we’ll take the sleeper train from Paris to Florence. We’ll get to see a fair bit of the journey on the way down I guess, before so that will be quite nice I hope.
The plan is to spend a little time in Florence, with a little trip out to the wine making regions before heading up to Bologna. This will be Yuko’s first trip to Italy and the my second (my first being to Bologna as the base for daily trips down to Imola for the San Marino Grand Prix back in 2001).

We’ve decided to do this now because fuel costs (and thus travel) are heading up now so we should do this while we can. Also, this will be our first holiday together since we’ve got married (yeah, I know we’ve been to various places since then, but the trip to Australia was for my work and trip to Japan last December was more about family and friend commitments, and the trip to Paris was really only done as a favour for Yuko’s cousin when he visited the UK)… so at long last get to have a week off together. Hurrrahh!

Well, Gordon Ramsey seems to think so anyway.

Whilst I do agree with the principle that we should use local, seasonal food most of the time… his suggestions for an outright ban, new laws and fines for breaking are just crazy!!!

Mind you, does seem to be a coincidence that he has his new series starting next week on Channel 4… and found a good way to get in the press