Takenoko is a spring delicacy in Japan. It is a baby bamboo shoot.  It is best cooked quickly after being dug out of the soil. What you want to find in the bamboo forest is the tiny tip of the shoot, which is barely visible and very difficult to spot. This is why going into the Bamboo forest and getting a Takenoko is called Takenoko-hori. Hori means digging. Imagine bamboo roots horizontally spread under your feet in the soil. Here comes the takenoko, shooting up to the surface vertically. A special long thin tool is used to dig takenoko deep out of the ground without damaging the skin and flesh. Can you see the dirt on most of the skin of the bamboo on the picture above?

My family lives in the centre of Tokyo. We used to make a trip to the countryside to buy bamboo shoots, freshly dug that morning. We could easily find a pile of bamboo shoots by the side of the road or in an old hut, signposted FRESH TAKENOKO. Takenoko waits to grow early in the morning after storing nutrition overnight. We are after the most fresh, tender, nutritious and hence delicious Takenoko.     

Its tender flesh is typically cooked in lightly seasoned sweet dashi stock with wakame seaweed or cooked with rice. If you are lucky to get the freshest takenoko, it can be simply grilled.   

Takenoko is a symbol for arrival of the spring season. Takenoko or bamboo represents the healthy growth in our life. Ironically, bamboo is notorious for its vigorous growth. They can lift up floor boards and kill other plants around them.  

Back in the olden days in Japan, the edge of the bamboo forests were surrounded by a deep ditch to keep the root system within the area. However, the market for Japanese takenoko was taken over by cheap takenoko brought from China. Bamboo forests were left unattended and went wild so that it affected the surrounding forest itself. This is still a big problem in many places in Japan.

While some people are fighting to protect our forest from bamboo invasion, we still look forward to tasting the delicacy of Takenoko.