Fermented & preserved
Miki
Miki — a lightly sour, lactic-fermented rice-and-sweet-potato drink from Amami
A lactic-fermented drink made from rice flour, sweet potato, and sugar, said to descend from kuchikami-zake once offered to the gods at harvest festivals. It's sweet fresh, but grows more sour by the day — and in Amami, that sourness is often the more prized stage.
- Origin: Kagoshima
- About 1260 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
This lacto-fermented drink is made from rice, sweet potato, and sugar, and is a favorite across the Amami islands. Thick and smooth on the tongue, it tastes something like sweet porridge or amazake. Fresh batches taste quite sweet, but the flavor turns tangier with each passing day, and in Amami a well-soured batch is said to be the more popular choice. Rich in plant-based lactic acid bacteria, the drink has drawn fresh attention in recent years from the health-conscious.
How it's made
Rice flour and sugar go into a pot of hot water and are stirred while heating, then grated sweet potato is squeezed for its juice and added once the mixture has cooled somewhat. Covered and left in a cool, dark place, it ferments over several days before being chilled and poured into a glass. Beyond drinking it straight, people mix it with fruit juice or alcohol, or add fruit to turn it into something closer to dessert.
Why it took this shape
The name is written with characters meaning "sacred wine," and the drink is said to trace back to chewed-rice sake once offered to the gods at festivals. It appears in the Nanto Zatsuwa, a record kept by the late-Edo Satsuma retainer Nagoya Sagenta, and is said to have long been brewed for harvest festivals as a prayer for a good crop. In recent years specialty shops have multiplied, and the drink is often reached for as a source of nourishment in summer or when appetite fades during illness.
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 Kagoshima
- Abura ZomenPork and somen are fried together with a splash of broth, the oil and stock emulsifying into a silky coat on the noodles. Just how somen took root in wheat-free Amami isn't clear, but the dish is a fixture whenever people gather, not least for the August Dance festival.
- AkumakiMochi rice steeped in wood-ash lye is wrapped in bamboo sheath and boiled for hours in more lye water — a Boys' Festival sweet said to have fed Saigo Takamori's troops in the field. The lye's alkalinity holds bacteria back, letting it keep for days in Kagoshima's heat and humidity.
- Amami Kokuto-jochuKokuto-jochu permitted to be made only in the Amami Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture. It's said to carry a sweet aroma distinctive to islands where sugarcane cultivation thrives, and around 30 breweries are said to compete on character while observing the liquor tax law's condition that rice koji be used.
- Buta Hone YasaiBone-in pork cut into big chunks is simmered in a large pot with tsuwabuki, daikon, and koshaman taro — an Amami dish essential to New Year's Eve, also called wanfineyasse. It's regarded as a wisdom born of using every part of the island's own black pigs.
- Buta JiruPork simmered with daikon, taro, and other roots in a miso broth, built on Kagoshima's own pork — the prefecture raises more hogs than any other — paired with a barley miso high in koji and correspondingly sweet. A warming bowl for winter, common at home and in school lunches alike.
- Buta MisoBoiled pork is pounded together with miso and sugar into a keeping paste, with peanuts and bonito flakes added in Amami versions. It's said to have grown out of the need to use every part of the one pig a household slaughtered each year, alongside salting and other preserved forms.