Shinagawa Ward in central Tokyo has seen lots of high-rise condos and office complexes sprout up in recent years, especially since shinkansen bullet trains began to stop there in 2003.
But Yoshio Otsuka, who runs a homey vegetable store in the shadow of Shinagawa's concrete jungle, reflects daily on times past when the area prospered as a vast vegetable farm.
Otsuka also ponders how residents of Edo (as present-day Tokyo was known under the Tokugawa Shogunate that ruled Japan from 1603 to 1867) might have savored the area's now-rare branded vegetables — ranging from Shinagawa kabu (a white, daikon-like turnip with abundant green leaves) to Magome sanzun ninjin (a short, thick type of carrot grown in the neighboring Magome district).