Beaujolais Nouveau Arrives in Japan a Month Early

Prolonged rainfall in Tokyo lasting more than 20 days, combined with heavy rain from Typhoon No. 25 during the Silver Week holidays, has disrupted vegetable supplies and driven up prices, with some retailers facing the possibility of suspending sales of popular seasonal products such as roasted sweet potatoes.

Nara Prefecture is home to a remarkable variety of traditional dishes, including an ancient cheese-like food dating back some 1,300 years, a wild mountain vegetable enjoyed for generations and a homemade crepe once served on special occasions, offering a glimpse into the region's long culinary history.

Families and visitors are flocking to a farm in Minoh, Osaka Prefecture, to enjoy autumn chestnut picking, with this year's harvest producing smaller but particularly sweet chestnuts due to a lack of rainfall.

For more than six decades, Sanyuken Fukasawa Branch in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward has served generations of customers with familiar Chinese dishes, as its 72-year-old second-generation owner and his wife continue to run the 14-seat neighborhood restaurant largely by themselves.

Authorities are warning people not to rely on artificial intelligence, guidebooks or internet searches to decide whether wild mushrooms are safe to eat after food poisoning cases involving toxic species, including one in which AI mistakenly identified a poisonous mushroom as edible.

Tokyo's Fuchu Prison is adapting its meals and living arrangements to a growing foreign inmate population, with about one in four prisoners coming from overseas and staff balancing religious, cultural and dietary needs against tight budgets and the demands of running one of Japan's largest prisons.

The cost of making a serving of curry rice at home in Japan fell below 350 yen in July for the first time in 11 months, helped by declining rice prices, according to Teikoku Databank.

Grape-picking season has reached its peak at tourist farms in Kashiwara, Osaka Prefecture, where hot weather from spring through summer has produced particularly sweet, richly flavored fruit this year, although prolonged rain has reduced visitor numbers and could shorten the season.