Fermented & preserved
Mamakari Suzuke
Mamakari su-zuke — sweet-vinegar pickled Setouchi sardine
Mamakari, a small Setouchi fish, is salted then cured in a sweet vinegar with ginger and kelp — its name is said to come from a phrase meaning 'so good you'd borrow rice to eat more,' and the longer it cures, the softer even the bones become.
- Origin: Okayama
- About 540 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Mamakari, a small Seto Inland Sea fish, is cured in a sweet vinegar marinade. Freshly pickled, the bones stay firm, but the longer it sits, the softer they become, until the whole fish, tail included, can be eaten. The oily flesh soaks up the sweet-and-sour brine, with ginger rounding out the finish, and the cured fish is sometimes pressed or hand-formed into sushi as well.
How it's made
The fish is gutted, butterflied, and boned, then salted and left to rest about an hour. A sweet vinegar is made from vinegar, salt, kelp stock, ginger, and sugar; once the salt is rinsed off with vinegar, the fish is submerged in the sweet vinegar to cure. It's often served with extra ginger or fine-shredded scallion on top.
Why it took this shape
The name is said to come from a saying that the fish is "so good you'd go borrow rice to eat with it." Curing the fattiest catch of October in sweet vinegar kept it edible longer, and it's said to have become a fixture on festival and family-celebration tables around the Seto coast.
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 Okayama
- Ami to Daikon no NitsukeTiny Setouchi shrimp called ami, richest in early autumn, are simmered with daikon in soy sauce and sugar — a pairing said to have grown from the two coming into season together, with a salted version kept for winter when rough seas kept boats ashore.
- Bachi JiruThe offcut ends of hand-stretched somen, called bachi for their resemblance to a shamisen pick, are simmered with daikon, carrot, and fried tofu in Asakuchi's Kamogata — said to hold a firmer bite than the somen strands themselves.
- Buri ZoniIn southern Okayama, New Year's zoni is built around yellowtail, a fish that changes name as it grows and so is read as auspicious, simmered with spinach, daikon, and other root vegetables — a dish passed down through the generations for the New Year's table.
- Chiya GyuJapanese Black raised in Niimi, Okayama, tracing to one of the oldest documented "tsuru-ushi" pedigree lines from the Edo period — said to benefit from the clear Takahashi river and fertile soil.
- Demi KatsudonA freshly fried pork cutlet is doused in hot demi-glace sauce over rice, a bowl said to have been devised by the founder of an old Okayama City restaurant after being won over by Western-style cooking at a Tokyo hotel — toppings vary shop to shop.
- FunameshiCrucian carp caught in the waterways of the reclaimed Kojima Bay farmland, at their least fishy in the cold season, are minced by hand and simmered with root vegetables, the rich broth then ladled over hot rice — also known as tonto-ko-jiru for the sound of the knife against the board.