Somewhere in the deepest wilds of rural Japan is a mountain surrounded by barbed wire. Along the wire are pillboxes containing angry, pencil-moustachioed Japanese "Self-Defense Force" recruits carrying large machine guns (to protect them from Koreans). They will shoot anyone who comes within 50 feet of the mountain. Carved painstakingly, by human hand, into the very bedrock of the mountain is a vast underground cave system. Here, Japanese scientists, dressed in lab-jackets, bifocal glasses, white hair (to make them look like martial arts masters) and, most importantly, name tags, research new ways to combine food. Mad scientists, in the infinite-monkeys-writing-Shakespeare school of employment theory, wander the corridors of the institute, babbling ever stranger untried-combinations; "parsnips and radiators", "cake and shame", "gravy and woman", in the hope that sooner or later one will chance upon a combination that will provide one of the Japanese industrial giants with another windfall. It is here that great successes like Passion Fruit Kit-Kats were first developed. It is also here that great failures like Ramen Carbonara and natto were first dragged into existance.
I believe it is here that Kinkans were first made.
One of my kids came up to my desk again today with a look on her face that reminded me of Virgil's famous refrain: "Beware of Japanese Junior High School girls bearing gifts". She was carrying a bag filled with what, at first sight, seemed like satsumas or perhaps clementines (what ever the difference between these may be). In fact, however, my English teacher informed me, they were Kinkans. I had never heard of this mysterious fruit before, although that wasn't especially surprising. There are a number of foodstuffs which are native only to Japan, and which no doubt originated in the above mentioned laboratory, and which only the Japanese are mental enough to voluntarily allow entry into their mouths. There are also a number of foodstuffs which Japan has cunningly renamed to allow them to claim that they are unique to Japan when actually they are common throughout the world: "This is a mikan. It's a Japanese orange". "No, it's just an orange". "No, it's a JAPANESE orange". "Whatever".
My student handed me one and told me "I grew them myself" - Always a deeply worrying sign. "Try it". It was only then that I found out that the kinkan though is not just a clementine or a satsuma or even a Japanese clementine or a JAPANESE satsuma, (or even, for that matter, Japanese, as I found out later). The Kinkan is just a small, sour orange-y lemon-y thing, that is filled to the brim with seeds. There is almost no fruit. It is just a seed carrying device. What fruit that there is, is so, so sour that upon putting one tiny shrivelled segment into my mouth, my face involuntarily collapsed into a prune shaped ball of flesh and nose and fear. "YES!", my student screamed as she saw me convulsing. "It's horrible isn't it".
