Heirloom Crop : Minden Eggplant

Minden eggplants, an heirloom crop of the Minden area in Tsuruoka, are small in size, firm and suitable for Japanese pickles.
"Arrived in Dewa Province (where is now around Tsuruoka area) after travelling in the mountain for days, how lovely the colour of early eggplants." - These lines were written by Basho Matsuro (1644-1694), a revered Haiku poet* who visited Tsuruoka following a pilgrimage to the Three Mountains of Dewa. The "early eggplants" in this Haiku were believed to refer to Minden eggplants.

*Haiku is a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world