Fermented & preserved
Jako Gouko
Jako gouko — old pickled Senshu mizunasu simmered with tiny dried shrimp
Old-pickled Senshu mizunasu eggplant, aged for months in a rice-bran bed, is desalted and simmered in dashi and soy sauce with tiny dried shrimp — an everyday side. In local speech jako means the shrimp and gouko means pickles, and the dish is said to go by jako-nasu as well.
- Origin: Osaka
- About 420 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
This dish simmers salt-preserved Senshu mizunasu eggplant together with tiny dried shrimp in a sweet-savory broth. Once the saltiness is soaked out of the preserved eggplant, its tang and depth mingle with the umami of the dried shrimp, known for a broth-rich savoriness, in a dish said to pair equally well with rice or sake. In some areas it's known as jakonasu, and it's said to have long been eaten in the Senshu area of southern Osaka. In Senshu, jako refers to these tiny shrimp and koko to pickles, it's said.
How it's made
The salted eggplant is cut into bite-sized pieces, soaked in water, desalted, and then blanched. It's simmered slowly in dashi with the dried shrimp, soy sauce, and mirin, with a little sugar sometimes added to taste. The shrimp, resembling the small shrimp caught in Osaka Bay, are said to give off a particularly rich broth, and the dish is said to be a well-rounded staple for calcium and protein.
Why it took this shape
In the Senshu area, salted rice-bran beds with high salinity are said to have long been used to cure summer's mizunasu eggplant into a preserve that could be eaten any time of year, taking two to three months to ferment. Combining the broth-rich dried shrimp from Osaka Bay with this preserved eggplant is thought to have grown out of the wisdom of pairing daily sources of protein and calcium. Changes in lifestyle and diet have reportedly made it less common in home kitchens, but it's said to remain a stubbornly popular Senshu specialty.
Dishes in the same style
- Achara ZukeWhite melon, eggplant, and lotus root are pickled in a sweet vinegar spiked with red chili — the name is said to trace to the Portuguese 'achar', carried in through Hakata Bay's old trade, and an odd number of vegetables is used for Obon hospitality.
- AhodakiOld takuan pickle, once its flavor and aroma have faded, is desalted and simmered again in soy sauce, a pantry staple from the Hokusei area. Its name — playfully self-deprecating, roughly "doing a foolish thing" — nods to eating it well past its prime, a frugal way to waste nothing.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Osaka
- AkanekoSteamed sticky rice pounded with wheat flour is dusted with sugar and soybean flour — also called hangesho mochi, for the rite marking the end of rice planting. The whole-ground wheat flour once left the mochi brownish, said to resemble a cat's round back and give the dish its name.
- BatteraThin slices of vinegared mackerel and white kelp sheet are pressed together in a wooden mold. A sushi shop in Minami-Senba is said to have devised it in 1891, naming it after the Portuguese word for a small boat because the original version, made with konoshiro, resembled one.
- Beni Shoga TenThin slices of red ginger, pickled in plum vinegar, are battered and deep-fried. The plum vinegar's tang and the ginger's bite are said to suit drinks well, and the fritter appears as a one-sen tempura in Sakunosuke Oda's 1940 novella 'Meoto Zenzai,' evidence of how long it has fed ordinary Osakans.
- Beni-zuiki to Aburaage no TaitanBeni-zuiki, reddish taro leaf-stalks that can grow to 2 meters tall, is soaked in vinegared water to remove its bitterness, then simmered with fried tofu in dashi and soy sauce — a summer obanzai dish. Its spongy cross-section is said to soak up flavor well, and it has been named a Naniwa specialty product.
- Dote YakiParboiled beef tendon simmers for a long time against a bank of miso and mirin piled around the pan's edge like a levee, or dote. Rich and sweet-savory, it pairs well with drinks and is said to be a beloved downtown Osaka food, with many shops concentrated in the Shinsekai district.
- EhomakiA thick sushi roll eaten whole and in silence while facing the year's auspicious direction on Setsubun, the last day of winter. Its origin is not settled, but theories passed down include a game among the geisha quarters and a prayer for prosperity by Osaka's Semba merchant houses.