笑 is read here as saku, "to bloom," rather than its usual "to laugh" or "to smile" — an old, deliberate overlap between the two meanings, since an opening flower was seen as visually resembling a smiling face. This kō marks the first peach blossoms actually appearing on the tree, arriving a little later than Hinamatsuri's own "peach festival" name might suggest — natural, unforced momo blossom in most of Japan opens closer to mid-March than to March 3rd.
Peach carries an old, specific reputation in East Asian tradition as a tree with power against misfortune, a belief considerably older than its more recent association with girls' festivals and pink spring prettiness.
Still good, often simmered whole.
At peak season through this stretch of spring.
Still sweet and in good season.
In excellent season, good raw or lightly cooked.
Mild and tender in spring, good simply grilled or in a vinegared dish (nuta).
Momo's blossoms open directly along bare branches in dense clusters of soft pink, generally a few weeks ahead of cherry blossom season and often mistaken for it at a glance from a distance.
The Kojiki records Izanagi, fleeing the underworld pursued by Yomi's army after his failed attempt to bring back his wife Izanami, throwing three peaches at his pursuers — the fruit's power alone is enough to turn the whole army back. Izanagi then names the peach 意富加牟豆美命 (Ōkamuzumi no Mikoto), telling it to help any living person on earth who finds themselves in the same kind of trouble he was just in. The belief that peach wood and fruit ward off evil predates Hinamatsuri's gentler, more decorative use of the same tree by a considerable margin, and the two traditions have coexisted in Japanese culture ever since.
笑 doing double duty for both "laugh" and "bloom" isn't unique to this kō — the same overlap shows up elsewhere in classical Japanese, treating a flower's opening as visually and conceptually close enough to a human smile that one character could reasonably serve both.
Momo blossom viewing draws far smaller crowds than sakura season a few weeks later, worth seeking out for exactly that reason.
A simple vinegar-miso dressing over lightly blanched welsh onion and, traditionally, some raw tuna or clam.
"The peach tree, so young and vigorous, its blossoms burning bright."
Peach generally opens first, by one to two weeks — a useful way to tell the two apart before either tree has fully committed to blossom.
They drink heavily once cut and wilt fast in stagnant water.
The ancient poem this line opens goes on to compare a bride's arrival at her new household to the peach's own progression — blossom, then fruit, then leaves — treating a single tree across one season as a complete image of a life moving through its own stages in order. There's something steadying in a metaphor that doesn't rush: the poem trusts each stage to arrive when it arrives, not before. What stage of something in your own life are you currently in the middle of rushing past, that might actually deserve to be let run its own full length?