It’s strawberry season in Japan! Bright red ruby-like berries are now on display at supermarkets everywhere, and many restaurants and pastry shops are promoting strawberry cakes and confectionaries. And it all looks positively mouth-watering. But a certain berry that has recently been the topic of attention among Japanese Twitter users may be almost too cute to eat!
Why all the fuss over a strawberry? Because this one looks exactly like a cat’s face. And to me, it actually looks very much like Hello Kitty’s face (without her signature ribbon, of course). It almost made me wonder if this piece of fruit was genetically engineered by Sanrio! You can see for yourself in the picture below.
Isn’t that just precious? (Now, I know that engineered or designed food ingredients are a highly controversial subject at best, and I’m sorry for sounding so superficial, but when I first saw this picture, I couldn’t help imagining how darn cute it would be if they could mass produce this strawberry.) The picture was first tweeted by user @ebi_25 on January 26 and so far has been retweeted over 1,900 times.
According to information provided by websites and articles on strawberries, such uniquely shaped strawberries are a result of a glitch in the flower bud differentiation process which occurs as the leaf bud changes into a flower bud. Such berries are apparently safe to eat, as the unusual shape formation doesn’t affect the nutritional composition of the fruit, and it seems that user @ebi_25, too, ate the cat-shaped berry after posting the picture.
Well, since the adorable “cat strawberry” is no more, I guess we’ll just have to satisfy ourselves with fantasies of delectable sweets made from regular berries. Sweet dreams, everyone!
photo: snotch
photo: Casa Mingo via Amazon JP
photo: Per Ola Wiberg
Source and cat strawberry photo: twitter @ebi_25 (Japanese) via Netallica (Japanese)
Top image (strawberries) by is_kyoto_jp
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