Rice Ripens

8/31-9/4

August has ripened into September, and with its coming there is a sense of change and anticipation in the air. Yesterday, I saw my first "autumn-themed" advertisement--Dunkin' Donuts "Fall Back in Love with Cider" campaign. Pretty soon those cups of iced tea will be replaced by warm mugs, and the bright fruity flavors of summer will give way to the rich, spicy scents and tastes.

In Japan, this is the season when the rice begins to ripen. Fields that began as a sea of watery mirrors in June, a verdant grassland in July and August, have now turned golden in September. Rice heavy on the stalk in fields once so slushy, are now nearly dry--the fishes and water-snakes replaced by land-frogs and crickets. The rice ripening is the first hint of the end to the heat, and soon enough the Japanese people will put aside their chilled noodle, cucumbers and greens, to enjoy freshly harvested rice; the beginning of autumn. It is still too early yet, but the golden-green seas are the first sign in Asia to the changing of the seasons, even if the oppressive heat continues.

While here in Massachusetts growing rice is not the principle crop, the idea of "ripening" or "past ripe" is during this cusp. In people's gardens over-ripe peaches fall to the ground, and a zucchini forgotten is now discovered amoung the dark leaves. The harbingers of autumn's cooler days--the fig--is now to be seen readily at supermarkets and at farmer's markets. The sweet, ambiguous flavor of the fig with its musky insides is a strange fruit, and the beginning of the long line of more stranger arrivals like gourds and pumpkins. The tomato season is reaching its end too, although the farmer's markets are still full of bright roma and large heirloom tomatoes. People celebrate these flavors in salads now, but pretty soon those ripening and ripened crimson orbs will be not for eating, but for canning.

In Japan the growing season would be winding down around now, the morning-glories tired and spent, and the eggplants still producing but not with the same spunk that they held earlier in the season. The streets seem dusty, hot and dry--though perhaps not as humid as the days of August had been.

Here in Cambridge, some of the trees have a withered look to them--as the tips of their leaves begin to crisp up from the strong rays of sun. Other trees, like the ones in the lawn directly across my street, have begun to tint with a mellow beginning of yellow. Signs of change begin subtly, and are begun during this season. The weather of the past few days has been capricious and indecisive between summer and autumn--muggy and hot one day, windy and warm the next, and finally just down right chilly. The fruit of summer has ripened, and is now hanging from the bow almost ready to drop.