Densho Digital Archive - Karlene Koketsu Interview (denshovh-kkarlene-01-0013)

<Begin Segment 13>

RP: Do you recall how, you're mentioning about people planting things, in blocks. Was there anything that kind of caught your eye around Block 31?

KK: Cosmos, cosmos those sort of daisy like plants. They grew all over, cosmos, and then my parents grew some vegetables for a while I think between the barracks. I don't remember there being too much else, I mean, my dad didn't plant a garden like some other people. Maybe some sweet peas or something, you know, out in front but other than that, I don't remember. You know, tomatillos, they grew wild and there was this elderly man, old family friend of my mother's parents and he was a bachelor and lived in the bachelor quarters. And so he didn't eat fruit and he saved them up for us and the cereal boxes and he'd bring them to us every now and then and my mother would fix, you know, the rice gruel porridge, okai, they call it, you just cook rice with a lot of water or my mother used to make it for him with tea. And I think she must have made pickles, you know, tsukemono, because he would have that in exchange but often he brought us the, we called them hozuki, the tomatillo plants, and we'd carefully take off the husk and hollow them out with a toothpick, take all that out and then we'd make this thing called hozuki, I guess in Japan they were made out of rubber or something but you put them on (your lower lip) and then you'd sort of load them up (with air) and then kind of (press) down on them and they'd make kind of a raspberry sort of the noise. So we used to do that quite a bit during the summer when they were growing.

RP: Where did you find the tomatillos growing, in the camp?

KK: I don't know, yeah, they were growing in the camp so they may have been there from, you know, times before when other people lived there. They were always about that... I can't make circles anymore but about that size. (Narr. note: The size was larger than a quarter.)

RP: Did you or your mom do any cooking in your room?

KK: You know, I think I remember her occasionally making us something, maybe toast or toast and she'd warm milk and put the... cut up the toast and (make) milk toast, is that what that's called, I can't remember but she would make that for us.