Fruits, Vegetables and Pickles

Published: February 27, 2018

Take a walk along Ojima Shotengai, also known as Sun Road Nakanohashi, and you will be struck by the number of fruit and vegetable shops dotted along this pretty shopping street. There are so many that it makes you wonder how they all make a living.

 

 

One of the shops, Maruhiro, is run by Mr. Hiroshi Saito, a friendly, no-nonsense shopkeeper with a loud voice and wry smile,

 

 

…whose philosophical answer to this question was that because people have their own shopping preferences and everybody knows that there are a lot of fruit and vegetable shops along this street, a lot of shoppers come here to do their shopping and there are enough customers to go around.

 

 

And Mr. Saito should know. He has been in the business for forty years, starting as an employee in the store which he now runs. And why should customers choose his shop over others?

 

 

“Well,” he says, his salt and pepper moustache bristling, “a lot of the produce I sell is not wrapped, so my customers can see exactly what they are buying, and the prices I show already include consumption tax, so there are no added costs or confusion.”

 

 

And the produce appears to be larger than some I have seen on sale in supermarkets, and looks to be attractive and of good quality. I don’t often see cauliflowers on sale and even then not ones as big as those at Maruhiro’s.

 

 

Certainly, whilst I was there customers, including non-Japanese ones, kept dropping in to buy vegetables and fruit from Mr. Saito and a friend who helps out in the store.

 

The produce on sale is mainly domestically-grown, but includes items which are out of season in Japan, such as these Mexican asparagus.

 

 

Every morning at 5:00 a.m., Mr. Saito goes off to Kita Adachi Market to buy his fresh produce.

 

 

Another speciality of Maruhiro is the home-made “tsukemono” (pickled vegetables), which Mr. Saito produces. Tucked away at the rear of the shop are large plastic buckets, some piled high with stones weighing up to 50kg acting as a press. These are the signs of Mr. Saito’s “work-in-progress”. He pickles turnips, cucumbers and Chinese cabbages in the shop and when they are ready, he sells them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pickling used to be done in most households, but these days mothers don’t have the time or space, and young people’s diets are changing and don’t include regular side dishes of pickles. Which is a pity as the pickles from Maruhiro were crisp and tasty; just the thing to go with a glass of beer.

 

 

So, why not stroll along Sun Road Nakanohashi and inspect Maruhiro’s fruit and vegetables line up, and maybe try out some of Mr. Saito’s home- made pickles?

 

 

 

Story and Photos by Jeremy Hutchinson