Kama-meshi

Last thing about the trip to Nagano was the bus trip back. We stopped at a bus station in Yokosawa where we bought special kamameshi cooked in ceramic pot with beautiful calligraphy design that many cherish the pot as a souvenir. "Kama" means pot and "meshi" means rice.

From Japan

From Japan

Yohko tells me this wonderful story about how the Kama-meshi became famous. Before there were bullet trains and grand stations, The trains would stop at stations along its route and at this station in this particular area the Emperor Hirohito's favourite was the kama-meshi. He would order it everytime he stopped at this station. Yohko's memory of it was that the vendors on the train platform would sell their kama-meshi to people at the train windows. People would reach out for the kama-meshi and pay. Then, when the train was about to leave the station, the vendors would line up and uniformly deep bow for 4 minutes to the patrons on the train in a way of saying thanks. She said it made the kama-meshi taste alot better because of the warm heart that she felt from the gratefulness of the vendors. That made my heart warm too when I heard that story. It was her mother's fondest memories and encouraged her to always buy this type of kama-meshi when she was passing by this area.

From Japan