Sumo Carrot Cake

I live in a relatively rural community, surrounded by gentle, rolling fields of sprightly green rice shoots and plenty of opportunities to buy fresh, seasonal vegetables at farmer’s markets. I couldn’t be happier to be living here, and I was over the moon when I had the chance to actually get down and dirty and help grow a little food rather than just eat it. I always have greater satisfaction enjoying meals that I know I worked hard for – whether it’s going for a long run or testing the murky waters of crop sowing.

Planting rice involves inserting a clump of three rice seeds into a cross-section etched into the muddy bottom of a paddy. This involves a lot of stooping and mucking in gooey, shin-deep mud with the consistency of thick brownie batter. At times it was difficult to free my foot from the mud to move forward in my planting row, and certain noises resembling body functions resulted. It turns out that fart jokes transcend cross-cultural divides. Bobbing up and down across the field was fun for a few hours, but doing it day in and day out would be the epitome of backbreaking. Now most farms use a tractor to plant fields in a snap, but occasionally they will put on group events get back to the spirit of an agricultural community.

Shared work is a great way to bring different types of people together and celebrate something we all have in common: a love of good food. Our post-planting lunch included freshly-picked spring vegetables, so sweet and clean that they required no extra dressing for the salad. Some people also ate onigiri, rice balls, made from last year’s rice harvest. Following the planting were some celebratory outdoor events –  first the members of the farm co-op treated us to a traditional flute concert. It was an idyllic setting that I imagine would come out of a movie – sweet, reedy flutes, gentle, iconic spring breeze, all basked in the warmth of an emerging summer sun.

It was an idyllic setting – broken by a bunch of young people thrashing about in the mud. The second event was dorozumo, which I have decided is Japanese for mudwrestling. Loosely following the rules of sumo, competitors wade into a yet unplanted paddy and try their best to avoid being thrown in the mud and, in turn, throw their competitor. I was one of two people willing to compete in the women’s division, and I basically won out of desperation. I hadn’t thought to bring a change of clothes, so if I were to loose I’d be stuck as a mudsicle for the rest of the day. We had one of the best matches, a long bout with lots of splashing and hugging in the end. So my shirt got muddy all the same, but for good reason.

And my prize as “sumo queen”, as one man dubbed me? A bottle of homemade carrot juice. Juice on it’s own ramps up my blood sugar a bit too much, so I decided to capitalize on an idea from Gluten Free Girl’s second cookbook, Gluten Free Girl and the Chef: A Love Story in 100 Recipes, by Shauna James and Danny Ahern. Their recipe for carrot cake calls for a carrot juice reduction with some added spices thrown in. By the time this homemade stuff had simmered down to a puree consistency, I was ready to dive in headfirst, heedless of my spare clothes situation. The heady fragrance of cinnamon and nutmeg was much more tempting than crayfish and tadpole-filled mud. I restrained myself to “taste-testing” a few spoonfuls, and the rest got put into the cake.

The cake base comes from Elana’s Pantry. The recipe is on her website here, so please go check out all the incredibly simple and stunningly delicious recipes she has to offer. Next to her instructions are my substitutions and adaptations, but I want to make sure she gets all the credit!

before heading into the oven

If you have the chance to participate in any sort of community-based agriculture (shared gardens, field trips to local farms, heck even a chance at beekeeping), I really encourage you to try it out. It is a fun way to get involved with your food; if you don’t have much motivation to cook, you’ll probably take more pride in harvesting and cooking something you grew. You may also wind up creating a whole new dish, surprising yourself with what you can create through unusual circumstances.

Through this event, I also found out that CSAs do exist in Japan! CSAs are a chance for consumers to buy food directly from a farmer, giving the buyer an opportunity to truly know where there food comes from and also support their local community. I now look forward to my delivery of the freshest, pesticide-free, truly “organic” food each week, and I can’t wait to go back and harvest our rice crop in the fall.