EAT CAMOTE====> Part 2

=============:* CAMOTE [SATSUMAIMO]: Part 2:============= EAT CAMOTE.... I remember that old lines we used to sing during CAMPFIRES with boys and girls at Day Camps and Live-in Camps of both the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides and the FPP several summers ago..... What great fun we had as we guffawed at how some naughty ones would pfft at the last words.... >>>>"EAT CAMOTE, THE MUSICAL FRUIT,THE MORE YOU EAT, THE MORE YOU PFFFT...."<<<< * Those were the days...... It was then that we always eat CAMOTE CUE, that sweet mid-afternoon snack we all love as a kid.... It was part of our youth.... It was the food the MASA all loved because it is affordable and filling... ** I NEVER REALIZED how important CAMOTES are to the Japanese until I came here. AROUND THIS TIME OF THE YEAR.... it is CAMOTE-HARVEST TIME. There are CAMOTEs everywhere: inside the supermarket, the roadside farmer's stall [which, btw, sells the cheapest;it is untended and there is a box where the buyer places a 100-yen-coin per packageof produce], and even in Talk Shows! *** ASIDE from the wide range of benefits one gets from eating CAMOTEs, farmers share the farming techniques and 'other secrets' with the hosts. Soft, loamy soil is needed to bring out the best produce, so they say..... Apparently, the BEST CAMOTE comes from the South, mostly in KYUSHU, the southernmost island in the Land of the Samurais. **** There is a range of CAMOTE VARIETIES, each one distinctly superb and with varying qualities. They revere the MURASAKI [VIOLET] variety as it is only grown in KAGOSHIMA-KEN, that Prefecture at the tip of KYUSHU Island. ***** COOKING CAMOTE is one great experience. The best one can get is that cooked over BLACK STONES under which, COALS are kept at a certain temperature. This one tastes better than the STEAMED ones. CAMOTEs here are seldom boiled. CAMOTE-CUE here [minus the stick, Lolah!] seems odd, though. SALT is added and honey or black sugar is used and sprinkled with BLACK SESAME SEEDS. IT IS the best season to eat CAMOTE especially now that the weather is getting colder. ****** ONE Pinay saw me buy CAMOTE cooked over those STONES in one Supermarket near my place. She offered an unsolicited snide remark: "BADUY! PAGKAIN NG POOR!" which made me smile in exasperation. It left me shaking my head as I headed back home. POOR soul! THAT is the reason why I seldom connect with Pinays here.... So now you know, ei? Besides, I seldom find someone who think in the same wavelength as I do, not that I am a snob....no, not that..... but I would rather be with a selected few people I consider MAJIME [SERIOUS] rather than be with MANUKEs [STUPID FOOL]. ******* CAMOTEs, ANYONE? ********