Hot Fruit on Fruit Action

Two Japanese cultural traits arise when trying to explain how on earth a melon can cost $100 or more dollars. First, is the gift giving. According to a few articles I read on expensive melons (stop yourselves from dirty jokes, you twelve year old boys out there), the vast majority of the expensive fruit is bought as a gift. The five dollar melons you buy for yourself, but the expensive ones you save for a gift for someone else.

Second, is Japanese ingenuity. They take an existing technology (growing fruit) and make it one thousand times better. There are square watermelons and canteloupes that are better for stacking, there are melons whose plants are pruned to produce only a few melons at a time, thus focusing the plants energy on three or four quality melons. The soil is richer, the greenhouses more sophisticated... all putting more cost into the production of the melon and yielding a higher price. (Watermelon head photo from pingmag.jp)

The expensive fruits look perfect and, hopefully, have a perfect taste. The ideal canteloupe, pear, apple, etc.

We bought a 20 dollar canteloupe, a five dollar orange, two four dollar peaches and two teeny tomatoes to try. David went to go play poker with some friends, so I will report on how they taste tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are some crazy fruit photos. Fruit porn. (To do the math, take off the last two zeros and slash the price by 20%. So, 10000 yen is is $80 dollars)