HAIBUN
“KUMA-NABE”
We descended deeply snowed Mt. Goten-yama in Hira Mountains to its foot, where there was a lodge for our stay tonight along the Mackerel Road/Saba-Kaido. The Road, in old Edo days, had been used for conveying such fishes on foot in a day from Wakasa area facing Japan Sea to Kyoto towns: the distance of around seventy kilometers or more. We rinsed our boots and simple crampons in a small clear stream rapidly running in front of the entrance hearing the landlady’s lively welcome as reservation had been made. We could sniff at pleasant incense being burned in the hall.
To go up and down the mountain and to have a New Year party with meats of boar and, especially, of bear/kuma, were aims of our today’s tour. The bear is, of course, a Japanese black one named Tsukino-wa-guma possessing a white bib-shaped speck like a crescent around its neck under the jaw.
After a hot bath, the party started by a toast with beer in a warm air-conditioned parlor floored with tatami mats. Snow, seen through the shoji screen, lay thick in the garden outside. The sound of running water reached us. Then, sake, shochu and whisky as well were brought along. A young man, the landlady’s son, served us the meats as “kuma-nabe”, a cook of boiled meat and vegetables involving eatable wild grasses and salted mushrooms in a big hot pan/nabe with basic taste of sweetened soy sauce and similarly to sukiyaki, we eat directly hot boiling ingredients from the nabe. In the first half of the party, the bear was served and then boar. The sliced bear meat, rather transparent, looked paler than boar’s because of a much richer fat content, but it tasted lighter. Both were of different tastes and were very nice. All got drunken and talked on and on about possible mountains to go this year. Despite these, I have felt somewhere a bit of guiltiness: I feel so always when I eat the meat of wild animals. During the party, it has begun to blow. The wind becoming stronger.
“kuma-nabe”-
rushing about over the roof,
the sound of mountains
熊鍋や夜空を駆ける山の音 （『未来書房』）
We descended deeply snowed Mt. Goten-yama in Hira Mountains to its foot, where there was a lodge for our stay tonight along the Mackerel Road/Saba-Kaido. The Road, in old Edo days, had been used for conveying such fishes on foot in a day from Wakasa area facing Japan Sea to Kyoto towns: the distance of around seventy kilometers or more. We rinsed our boots and simple crampons in a small clear stream rapidly running in front of the entrance hearing the landlady’s lively welcome as reservation had been made. We could sniff at pleasant incense being burned in the hall.
To go up and down the mountain and to have a New Year party with meats of boar and, especially, of bear/kuma, were aims of our today’s tour. The bear is, of course, a Japanese black one named Tsukino-wa-guma possessing a white bib-shaped speck like a crescent around its neck under the jaw.
After a hot bath, the party started by a toast with beer in a warm air-conditioned parlor floored with tatami mats. Snow, seen through the shoji screen, lay thick in the garden outside. The sound of running water reached us. Then, sake, shochu and whisky as well were brought along. A young man, the landlady’s son, served us the meats as “kuma-nabe”, a cook of boiled meat and vegetables involving eatable wild grasses and salted mushrooms in a big hot pan/nabe with basic taste of sweetened soy sauce and similarly to sukiyaki, we eat directly hot boiling ingredients from the nabe. In the first half of the party, the bear was served and then boar. The sliced bear meat, rather transparent, looked paler than boar’s because of a much richer fat content, but it tasted lighter. Both were of different tastes and were very nice. All got drunken and talked on and on about possible mountains to go this year. Despite these, I have felt somewhere a bit of guiltiness: I feel so always when I eat the meat of wild animals. During the party, it has begun to blow. The wind becoming stronger.
“kuma-nabe”-
rushing about over the roof,
the sound of mountains
熊鍋や夜空を駆ける山の音 （『未来書房』）
posted by HISASHI MIYAZAKI at 12:15 pm
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