Fermented & preserved
Kujira no Tare
Kujira no Tare — soy-marinated, air-dried whale meat
Meat from a Baird's beaked whale is marinated in soy sauce, sake, and ginger, then air-dried into a jerky-like preserve — bark-black and plain to look at, born of preservation before refrigeration, and still something people who left southern Boso are said to bring home as a taste of it.
- Origin: Chiba Minamiboso
- About 70 km south of Tokyo
What it's made of
Whale meat is soaked in a sauce of soy sauce, sake, and ginger, then dried until only half-dry, making a preserved food. It looks jet black, like charcoal or tree bark, and grilling releases the toasted aroma of the sauce along with the meat's distinctive flavor. The more it is chewed, the more flavor comes through, and it works as a companion to sake or a side for rice, usually sliced thin and savored slowly while being grilled.
How it's made
Whale meat is soaked in a sauce of soy sauce, sake, and ginger so the flavor soaks in. It is lifted out of the sauce and dried until only half-dry, then grilled over a flame just before eating. Toasting over the flame brings out the aroma of the sauce along with the meat's flavor, and it is usually sliced thin, chewy and full of savor with every bite.
Why it took this shape
In an age without refrigerators, whale meat that once appeared frequently at the table is said to have been preserved by soaking it in sauce and drying it, a way to make it last. Because this is a region that has long hunted a deep-diving species of whale by harpoon rather than net, this preservation method is said to have been carried on alongside that way of fishing, and it has become a taste of home that people who moved away buy whenever they return.
Before you go
- How to shop in a depachika (department store food hall)A guide to browsing prepared foods and bento, choosing wagashi as a gift with a good shelf life, sampling etiquette, end-of-day discounts, asking for cold packs and wrapping, and finding your way around a depachika floor.
- Enjoying a bussanten (regional products fair)A guide to what's sold at a bussanten (regional products fair), how to find one, when it gets crowded, shelf life and taking food home, and how to fit one around a trip.
- How to use an antenna shopA guide to what's sold at an antenna shop, its restaurant or eat-in counters, its tourist-information role, the cluster of shops around Ginza and Yurakucho, and how to use one before a trip or for last-minute souvenirs.
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
Contrast
- Kujira JiruSalted whale blubber is parboiled to render off excess fat, then simmered in a big pot with daikon, carrot and potato — a New Year dish from around Hachinohe's old whaling grounds, said to deepen in flavor over several days.
- Kure no NimonoWhale meat is simmered with daikon, carrot, konjac, and shredded kelp — a New Year's Eve dish in Kochi. Eating something so large is said to carry a wish for one's children to grow into something big themselves, and the whaling town of Muroto has long carried the tradition.
Also from Chiba
- Arirang RamenA soy ramen said to have started at a single restaurant on a mountain pass in Chiba's Nagara. Named, it's said, for the legendary Arirang Pass of Korean folklore, its soy broth carries the sweetness of onion and pork, layered with house-made chili oil and grated garlic for depth and heat.
- Barappa ManjuFreshly milled wheat dough is wrapped around red bean paste and steamed on a leaf of catbrier, called barappa locally — a bun said to be made in Chiba's Hokuso area when people gathered for summer festivals or Obon, each bringing ingredients to share.
- Iwashi no Unohana-zukeSalt-and-vinegar-cured sardines are packed into sweet-vinegared tofu lees with carrot and ginger — the pale lees are likened to unohana blossoms in the name, and are also said to keep the fish from breaking apart or oxidizing; eaten at New Year's and as an everyday pantry food.
- Rakkasei MisoPeanuts too small or misshapen to sell are stirred into miso and sugar and toasted into a pantry relish — said to have started as a way for farm households to use up peanuts the market wouldn't take, in leaner years.
- SumitsukareDaikon and carrot, coarsely grated with a rough-toothed oni-oroshi grater, are simmered with leftover setsubun soybeans and sake lees — said to have traveled from Tochigi into Chiba's Higashikatsushika area, offered to the local inari shrine on the year's first Day of the Horse before being eaten. Ibaraki and Saitama carry dishes of the same name.
- Yude RakkaseiFreshly dug peanuts, still in their shells, are boiled whole in salted water — a taste unique to the growing region, since raw peanuts start hardening the moment they're pulled from the ground and need to be boiled almost immediately.