Goya Honoring Day: ゴーヤの日

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New Consumer and Market Initiatives: A celebration of Bitter Melon

May, 2006 & 2008

Goya Honoring Day (ゴーヤの日), a festival originating in Okinawa, Japan, is a special day to recognize Bitter Melon as a featured product of that tropical island (“Goya” is the term for Bitter Melon in Okinawa dialect.) and a popular ingredient that some even suspect is the secret to the Okinawan longevity. In Japan, Goya Day is celebrated on May 8th because the Japanese pronunciation of the date “May” and “8” sounds the same as “Go-Ya”. Having celebrated twice in 2006 and 2008, the Goya Honoring Day includes a wide array of activities to learn about and revel in bitterness of all kinds. The opportunities for bitter flavor and sweet exchange abound!

Goya Honoring Day, 2006
Activities included "Bitter Melon Cook-off" with five visitin chefs to create unique Bitter Melon dishes before everyone's eyes; "Recipe Call-in with Bitter Melon enthusiasts from around the globe to call in their favorite recipes; "Bitter Melon Roulette" to be crowned Goya King or Queen by choosing Bitter dumplings out of hundreds of identical dumplings; and Goya Celebration Banquet. Goya Honoring Day in 2006 was hosted by Spurse and the Cambridge Arts Council as part of The Public Table, a provisional restaurant of The Collective for the Finding of the Commons, a project of the CAC initiative Public Art/Moving Site.

Goya Honoring Day +2, 2008
Activities included "Mine Ode and Limpid Diatom," a spectrographic analysis of "I am not bitter" without sounding bitter by composer Michael Gardiner; Bitter Caricature by visual artist (also ex. caricaturist) Willam Davenport; "Bitter Melon Papier Mache!" & "Goya Kids' News Bulletin" by Japanese cultural educator Akemi Chayama from the Boston Children's Museum; "Muscular Therapy" by massage therapist Stephanie Durrel, LCMT; and"Holistic Therapies" by Pathway to Wellness.

Goya Honoring Day, 2010
This year, the celebration happens at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in part with an exhibition EATLACMA which opens on June 27th. Throughout the day, the special Goya Honoring Day button will be distributed (editions of 250) to Museum visitors. If you are in LA, please stop by! You will also find our new project Promiscuous Production: Breeding is Bittersweet on LACMA campus.