Memory from last winter pt.2 - Yurine

Yurine is root of lily. Yes, lily as the flower, and Japanese eat it's root. Yurine is most popularly known among Japanese as one of the assorted ingredients contained in chawanmushi which is steamed egg custard. What on the above picture is simply boiled with salted water, and crushed pickled plum(umeboshi) is set aside as condiment.

 
Texture of cooked yurine resembles to potato. More precisely, you feel it somewhat smoother than potato in your mouth once you bite. Cooked yurine creates neither any scent nor rich flavor, but slight sweetness. For me personally, smooth texture is the best part to enjoy this root.

For the black bowl that served yurine, sorry again, I do not have info about where this was made. Based on the black glaze, you can partly see the orange glaze. We call it persimmon glaze that is called ‘kakiyu’ in Japanese (I will explain the variety of glazes used for Japanese pottery in my later posts). This combination of glaze can popularly be seen among Mashiko-ware (however I can’t be sure that this particular one is from Mashiko, such style can also be seen among Tanba-ware and etc...). In the very bottom of the bowl around the lower rim, you see unglazed part that "bare roasted clay" is shown. It's in reddish brown color that gives difficulty to distinish from kakiyu with my photos (sorry for the poor quality photos.... I have to learn photography...). Orange parts seen inside of the lower rim and around the top rim are the persimmon glaze.

 

My personal highlight of this bowl is how the persimmon glaze is mingling into the black and dripping downward from the top rim.Two photos below are the detailed look of the dripping, with and without the flash. The reason I posted one with the flash is that the reflection of the light shows the drips better. The reflection is made by iron containment in both of the black and persimmon glazes. It’s colored somewhat like the oil in the water. Each drip going downward is thin as hair. Chinese people  actually call such dripping “rabbit’s hair”, and I love the way it is called.