Mrs. Hashimoto carried her age in her hands, each fold a year, each crease a line of crops. They reminded me of my own grandmother’s hands, gnarled by time, balls of coal collapsing into diamond. Her quick and falsetto cackle, of the entirely benevolent kind, referenced my mother’s, an auditory reminder to keep a cheery disposition at your side like a gun. I found home in her, which was strange, given that I was halfway around the globe—stranded in the middle of an ocean of green earth and distant birdsong.

As a part of the program that brought me to Japan, I offered up my labor to small, organic farms in need of an extra hand, receiving a place to stay and three square meals a day (though these would largely turn out to be feasts). The Hashimotos were my first host family; their home, a traditionally-styled farmhouse built by Mr. Hashimoto, was situated atop several dozen verdant acres along the northern tip of the Ishikawa peninsula, a piece of land that juts out of the side of Japan like a small thorn. Dairy farmers by trade, the Hashimotos were an older breed of ranchers, leathered by the sun and time; though­­, they sold a more polished and tourist-friendly version of themselves through the ice cream shop they ran out of the small hut adjacent to the milking stalls.

Two years of college Japanese—sterile and tame and grammatically correct—would not prepare me for the thick, rural accent of the Hashimotos—warm and wild and perfectly flawed. So, I spent much of my time nodding, smiling, and laughing in agreement, understanding, and understandable confusion. However, there was one constant during my time on the farm—Mrs. Hashimoto. Her shrillness, her lightspeed Japanese, and her dedication to her work defied her years. After milking the cows, tending to the garden, and feeding all of the animals, it was Mrs. Hashimoto’s job to make the meals. Standing in her wood-paneled kitchen, watching the garden through the window above the sink and paying attention to the laundry drying on the line out the back door, she would cook for hours—steam rising around her like the ghosts of hungry travelers, the sound of her knife against wood an appetizing melody.

Every day was a journey through local taste. At breakfast, sliced banana and mild Japanese melon—a saccharine yellow orb with the interior texture of an apple and the scent and taste of freshly ripened honeydew and pollen—would be served alongside thick-sliced toast drizzled with local honey and all washed down by glasses of Hashimoto milk, a rich, sweet whole milk that coated the mouth in a blanket of locally sourced velvet.

Lunch, a near-noon affair, usually consisted of an ice cream appetizer (to cool blood boiled by the heat of a humid Japanese summer), a cup of anchovied miso soup (filled with the brine of an ocean and the light, nutty subtlety of bamboo and lotus roots), a customary bowl of steamed rice, sliced vegetables from the garden, and the protein of the day (fluctuating from freshly steamed lionfish to lightly crisped pork patties to delicately seared strips of beautifully marbled steak).

Dinner, a grown brother to lunch, was served before the final milking of the day. The time between lunch and dinner was used for rest, various chores, and ingredient preparation—Mrs. Hashimoto was an expert at mise en place.

It must have been halfway through my sixteen days at the farm when Mrs. Hashimoto asked if I would like to help her make dinner. Wanting to feel useful, I jumped at the offer and was handed a large platter of freshly-picked string beans—fuzzy and green enough to make grass blush. She picked one up, and in a deft, swift motion, pulled the fibrous spine from the bean; then, she motioned for me to do the same. With a visible amount of difficulty, and in too swift a motion, I managed to rip the pod in half, spilling silky beans all over the kitchen table. She laughed warmly—her eyes saying she had seen it all before—and handed me another. Again, I mangled the bean and shot its contents across the kitchen like a little green firecracker. Laughing, she took my hands in hers—warm and gentle, but roughened with the daily toil of someone who had worked every day for what she had—moving mine like the hands of a marionette. In that moment, I was transported. I was seated at the tall linoleum table in my grandmother’s closet-sized kitchen, my feet dangling and swinging beneath the chair.  Grandmother’s chin rested gently on my head, tickling me as we laughed and prepared lima beans for stewing.

That evening, Mrs. Hashimoto and I truly talked for the first time. She told me how she had grown up in a farming family in the Kiso valley, how she had met Mr. Hashimoto in grammar school, how she had never really been to the big city except to buy a nice cut of tuna that one time—peppered throughout our conversation, the sounds of chopping, slicing, frying, searing. When it was all said and done, a large bowl of curry rice was slid in front of me. Thick and brown, Mrs. Hashimoto’s curry flirted with mole as much as it did an Indian roux—chocolatey and spiced, filled with the sweetness of freshly cooked carrot, the starchiness of potato, and the rounded funk of white onion. Yet, this curry contained more than its ingredients; it contained time and stories and sweat and love and home.

Japanese Curry-Rice (カレーライス)

Ingredients:

2 pounds of ground pork

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 chopped carrot (larger circles = better)

1 chopped onion (larger chunks)

1 large potato (after peeling, cut it into medium-big chunks)

5 cups of water

1 240g package Japanese curry roux (different people with can choose brands/spice-levels to suit their desired flavors)

½ cup of cooked rice per person

Instructions:

Begin by placing the ground pork in a hot pan on medium heat, stirring occasionally until the pork is browned and cooked-through. Then, in another, large pan, heat you oil. Once hot, add your chopped vegetables to the oil and fry until they are a nice golden hue and have softened somewhat. After adding the water to the pan, break in the pieces of Japanese curry roux—stirring constantly to make sure that the blocks dissolve evenly. Simmer everything for roughly 10 minutes; then, add in your pork from the other pan (making sure to drain any rendered fat from the pork before adding it to the curry). Continue simmering the combined mixture for another 5 minutes. Lastly, pour the curry over cooked white rice and enjoy.