The Gion Festival



July is the month of one of the largest and most histrical festival of Japan,

Gion festival.Actually it is July 1st -31st.

You can see the Yama and Hoko  32 floats in streets central of the city .

My house is very close to this area,so after my guests joined my cooking class,

they went to  see this festival.

Also I went to Yoi-Yama(eve-night festival) with my neighbors after the lesson.

This is the Friday nigts,so there are a lot of people.

This is the view from the hoko float.
There a lots of peole in small street.

This is "Moon"Hoko.This is one of the beatiful decoration in evening.

July 17 9:00 morning,

The 32 Yama and Hoko floats moving and parade begins.








At my kitchen,

We eat often Hamo fish (pike conger) in July.

This is traditional ingredient for Gion festival dishes.
We use for soup,sushi,tempura using this Hamo.

This is Hamo tempura with shiso leaf.

Summer in Kyoto,very hot,unbelievably humid.

I like to eat a lot of summer vegetables like tomatoes,cucumbers,

ginger,or egplants,to cool the body.

At the same time ,we also favor stamina improving foods like unagi(eel).

I feel summer is the most important season of the year for a balanced,

healty diet.

I cook vinegar marinated dishes in summer time very often.

One of the popular dishes is Aji no Nanban-zuke.

The conbination of rice vinegar and the fish oil flavor is said to be

perfect to stimulate a sluggish summer appetite.

Ko-Aji (small horse mackerel)

Deep fired fishes.

Cut the vegetabes in thread.

Marinated with rice vinegar,dashi,sugar and soysauce for 1 day.

Delicious!!