The Japanese say that butterbur sprouts are the first thing bears eat after emerging from hibernation. Right now is the coldest time of the year, despite the first hints of spring beginning to appear. Bears are still supposed to be hibernating...although villagers say that there was bear scat and claw marks seen recently, thus the government have just released more bear warnings... Eating seasonally is deeply embedded in Japanese culture; these ideas appear in the earliest literature, poetry, an