It’s a craze that captivated the Japanese in the post-WW II period. And it’s reached heights nobody expected when it first appeared. The Japanese fashion for decorative fruits grown in special molds has come to dominate high-end gift giving…
A rare and sought-after Japanese pyramidal Watermelon: It’ll cost you
200,000 Yen; roughly (US)$1,338. Makes a pricey – but inedible –
table centrepiece for your next Tokyo celebrity dinner party…
It all started when Tokyo graphic designer Tomoyuki Ono exhibited the first cubic watermelon at his Ginza gallery back in 1978. He claimed practical reasons for the stunt. Square melons don’t roll around on the shelf. Nor when you are trying to cut them. Perfect, uniform slices are finally achiev-able. Ono also claimed they fit more compactly in fridges, saving space.
A less-noble reality
But the real attraction for the culturers of such novelty fruit is the price they can command. Square watermelons can sell for hundreds of thousands of yen – thousands of dollars.
And they do. Sell, that is. Because these unnatural beauties have become major social and cultural icons. They symbolize the ultimate in high-end gift giving. And have helped foster the development of a unique Japanese retail institution: the Expensive Food Store.
Ultimate hostess gifts
Move over wine and flowers… ‘Extreme’ fruits are considered the ultimate hostess gift among the well-heeled in the land of the Rising Sun. And it’s not just melons, either. Buddha-shaped pears, Perfect cucumbers with cross-sections in the shape of stars, Valentine Hearts and other specialties, and even perfectly uniform apples and oranges are widely available.
Growing such curiosities has become such a craze that gardening tool makers have started offering fruit-growing molds in a wide selection of shapes.
But there’s more
Even more popular than the novelty-shaped fruits are exceptionally rare and delicious varieties of other fruits. Promient among them: strawberries, grape, apples, citrus fruits and especially melons. The Japanese REALLY love their melons.
My take
Japanese have long treasured the rare and beautiful when it comes to living things. Witness their fascination with Bonsai – the cultivation and manipulation of miniature evergreen. And their uni-versal love of Ikebana – flower arranging.
My Mom actually became so caught up in the exotic extremes of Japanese culture after reading James Clavell’s blockbuster best-selling 1975 novel Shōgun that she signed up for a night school course one winter to learn Ikebana. She wasn’t alone. They had to open up a second slass to serve the demand. Heck… The very fact that Ikebana all of a sudden became a craze attests to the influence of Clavell’s book, and the allure of the Japanese ‘mystique’…
As much as the Japanese fascination with rare and ornate fruit may tickle our western funny bone… There’s little to suggest that nouveau-tradition will catch on here. We in North America and Europe are just too practical – and maybe incurably crass, as well – be entranced by the Japanese fruit move-ment.
Not to mention the mostly unpublished fact that… Japanese cubic and pyramidal watermelons aren’t edible! They are harvested before they become ripe, to ensure they retain perfect shape and uniform size. Give me a fruit basket from Edible Arrangements or one of their energetic competitors any day!
~ Maggie J.