Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/83

Rh almost identical. It is to that country, which has yielded us so many useful and beautiful plants, that we turn for new vegetables to supplement our present food resources. One of these plants, namely, Stachys, has already been mentioned as rather promising. There are others which are worth examination and perhaps acquisition.

One of the most convenient places for a preliminary examination of the vegetables of Japan is at the railroad stations on the longer lines—for instance, that running from Tokio to Kobe. For native consumption there are prepared luncheon-boxes of two or three stories, provided with the simple and yet embarrassing chopsticks. It is worth the shock it causes one's nerves to invest in these boxes and try the vegetable contents. The bits of fish, flesh, and fowl which one finds therein can be easily separated and discarded, upon which there will remain a few delicacies. The pervading odor of the box is that of aromatic vinegar. The generous portion of boiled rice is of excellent quality with every grain well softened and distinct, and this without anything else would suffice for a tolerable meal. In the boxes which have fallen under my observation there were sundry boiled roots, shoots, and seeds which were not recognizable by me in their cooked form. Prof. Georgeson, formerly of Japan, has kindly identified some of these for me, but he says, "There are doubtless many others used occasionally."

One may find sliced lotus roots, roots of large burdock, lily bulbs, shoots of ginger, pickled green plums, beans of many sorts, boiled chestnuts, nuts of the gingko tree, pickled greens of various kinds, dried cucumbers, and several kinds of sea-weeds. Some of the leaves and roots are cooked in much the same manner as beet roots and beet leaves are by us, and the general effect is not unappetizing. The boiled shoots are suggestive of only the tougher ends of asparagus. On the whole, I do not look back on Japanese railway luncheons with any longing which would compel me to advocate the indiscriminate introduction of the constituent vegetables here.

But when the same vegetables are served in native inns, under more favorable culinary conditions, without the flavor of vinegar