Kumamoto Essay

There are many special products in Kumamoto especially foods, for example, Basashi, Karashirenkon, Banpeiyu and so on. They are not famous for only Kumamoto but also for all over Japan. Some TV program introduced Kumamoto dishes. I am going to talk about two foods, shio-tomato and taipien.
First, I am going to introduce Shio-tomato. Shio-tomato is a kind of tomato. It is sweeter than the common tomato which we can buy in a supermarket, because shio-tomato is grown in reclaimed land. Reclaimed land is salty land. Hachibee tomato is the name of branded shio-tomato. It is sold in Yatsushiro. The name means that it is grown up in Yatsushiro and Yatsushiro is plain field, in Japanese, yatsushiro (八代) heiya. Then, yatsu and hei are picked up and the two words are put together, and then
hachibee is completed! There are many dishes which use shio-tomato. I will introduce some of them. First is "Tomato spaghetti". It is very common that tomatoes are used as one of ingredients for spaghetti. However, shio-tomato is so sweet that the spaghetti which uses shio-tomatos is more delicious than common one. Second, I am going to introduce "tomato doughnut". Have you ever heard a doughnut which includes tomatoes? This doughnut is a little red. This doughnut is so delicious that you should try! I am sure that you like it.
Next I am going to talk about taipien. Taipien is one of very famous Kumamoto foods. It looks like ramen but the ingredients are different from ramen. Taipien comes from China in Meiji period. Chinese taipien is high class and expensive so Japanese changed the ingredients, for example, swallow's nests changed to flied eggs, shark fins changed to bean-starch vermicellies. Taipien is famous for Kumamoto people so it is usual that taipien is served to children as school provided lunch. Most of Kumamoto people like taipien so there are many restaurants which serve taipien.
As you can see, there are delicious foods in Kumamoto. If you have some foods which you want to try, you should do. (345)