Bitterness and acerbity in the vegetables taste, blackening in the places of the cuts as well, are connected with the presence of oxalic acid, alkaloids and tannin, in other words hazardous substances. Therefore you should remove acerbity thoroughly in order to leave only useful substances. Besides after removing bitterness, vegetables look prettier and have a better taste.

Spinach, young leaves of chrysanthemums, deciduous vegetables
These greens should be boiled in boiling water and should be cooled down in cold water at once. Then squeeze it with your hands. Quite often it is placed in a polyethylene pellicle and then into microwave. But in this case as well we recommend soaking it and squeezing then. Recently "spinach for salad" has appeared in sale, which can be used in a crude state. We advise you to try a leaf of spinach first, and if you feel bitter taste we strongly recommend you not eating it too much.
Do not forget to replace the boiled vegetables into cold water; otherwise it can change color and taste.

Burdock root (gobo)

There is so much bitterness in a gobo, and because of this water, in which it is soaked, turns black. First you should sponge it from dirtiness and ground. Then peel it under the running water. If you need plenty of time for cutting up gobo for some dish, you can cut it beforehand into slices 5-6 cm long and pour it with water. These parts are cut in a proper way and placed into another pan with water. After removing the bitterness, the burdock root is placed into a bamboo frail. At the same time you should mind that the gobo taste depends on its aroma as well. Thus it is not recommended to over soak it in water. Gobo is used widely in the Japanese cuisine. And especially it is used for preparing soups.

Eggplants

Sliced eggplants begin to blacken in some time, which is evidence of the presence of large amount of bitterness. To remove bitter taste, you should place eggplants in salty water. You should dry it well before frying; otherwise oil will be splashing.

Japanese daikon radish

From the appearance of radish you can learn about the presence of specific bitterness. Namely, it has clear whiteness or not. If whiteness looks unclear then you should boil daikon to make it soft. In such cases daikon is boiled in water, in which the rice has been washed before that. But if there is no such water you can add some rice ii water.

Fern

Crude fern does not meet recently. Formerly, the collected fern was washed up, placed into a big container and was covered with ashes. Then it was poured with boiling water and set aside for the night to remove bitter taste. You can eat fresh fern having poured boiling water on it and dipped in soy sauce with cuttings of dried bonito.

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