The special for cold days!

Even though the day before yesterday was terribly cold,

yesterday was as hot as we could spend all the day with t-shirt.

How strange days we have!

Anyway, because of the severe temperature difference,

my mother made this delicious traditional food for dinner.

This is "Houtou", especially famous in Yamanashi prefecture.

Houtou is like a Udon noodle.

Its characteristic is thick and springy noodle.

We commonly eat it with many vegetable;

carrot, welsh onion, eapecially pumkin is unbeliebably delicious!

My father comes from Yamanashi so my family often eat it in every this season.

I think we have special feeling to it and very familiar with it, too.

Even if Yamanashi is not directly my hometown,

I cannot stop feeling familiality with it.

Every winter, when we eat Houtou,

we feel end of summer and coming of autumn and winter.

 

And now, I would like to introduce about Houtou a little bit more.

As I said, "Houtou" is traditional food famous in Yamanashi prefecture.

Its shape looks like "Udon", but taste is more like "Suiton".

(Suiton is also made from flours and we knead it like a ball.

Then put them into the soup based on the soy sauce.)

In Yamanashi, you can find so many Houtou restaurants.

The soup is made by basicly miso and pumpkin is a good accent of this soup.

We don't need to boil the Houtou noodle in advance

because different from Udon noodle, it doesn't contain the salt.

And also it doesn't have body so when we boil it,

the soup becomes thickened.

In many cases, Houtou is made in large pot and divide it to each person.

The indredients are very different from the restautants or houses.

Some peopel use mushrooms or patatos, and others use chinese cabbage or burdock.

So there are many types of Houtou are existing.

And also it is different in each seasons.

In summer, the main vegetables are onion, carrot, or potatos,

In winter, satoimo (taro) potatos, chinese cabbage, or muchrooms,

it depends on the seasonal food.

Somehow  the same point of them is using many vegetable.

Houtou is also good for our body

because it contains a lot of vegetbles so we can gain dietary fiber or bitamin from it.

And also Houtou is made from flour so it gives us protein.

Because of these reasons, we may be able to say Houtou is a healthy food.

In the region nearby Yamanashi prefecture,

flour eating culture was very common and typical. 

Especially, Houtou is less use of water and flour

so this ecomonic food spreaded all the Yamanashi and near prefectures.

And as an another reason of spread,

Yamanashi was a difficult region to grow rice.

So flour or wheat eating habit was easily spread in this area.

Houtou has a long history and it has been eaten for many years.

It is amazing fact, isn't it?

This traditional food is very common for me.

Whenever I visit my grandpa's house in Yamanashi,

I always feel llike eating Houtou for you.

Houtou is a kind of my homemade tastes.

When you would like to eat something hot dishes,

I strongly recommend Houtou.

Why don't you eat Houtou in this autumun or winter time?

I am sure that you can be happy, hot, and healthy by it!!