Fermented & preserved
Tsukemono Misoni
Tsukemono misoni — cut pickled napa cabbage simmered in bean miso
Cut pickled napa cabbage simmers in a pot of dried-sardine stock and Gujo bean miso — a dish of Gujo City said to have begun with charcoal-kiln workers using an empty mackerel tin as a pot for their pickles, where the more soured the old pickle, the better it's said to taste.
- Origin: Gifu Gujo
- About 250 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Aged, sour pickled napa cabbage simmered in a pot of dried sardine broth and soybean miso, so the pickle's tartness melts into the miso's richness, and the fermented cabbage's savor spreads with each spoonful. It's said to go extremely well with rice.
How it's made
Sliced pickled napa cabbage is rinsed to remove some salt, added to a pot with seasonal vegetables, and simmered down with red miso, sake, sugar, and mirin. A pickle sour enough to bite back is said to make for better flavor, and adding meat is said to be a common modern twist. Leftovers are said to be topped up and reheated as needed.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to trace back to charcoal workers who used empty mackerel-tin cans as bowls to simmer pickled cabbage in their mountain huts, and it's said to have spread as a quick dish a busy mother, pulled between farm work and housework, could throw together in a small pot. It's said to have taken root as a way to make full use of pickles through the cold, lean months of winter.
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
- Nita KumojiSalt-leached turnip-leaf pickles are stir-fried in oil, then simmered down in soy sauce and mirin until the liquid is gone — a dish of the Hida region born from the wisdom of using up pickles that had turned sour by early spring, finished with a hit of sesame oil and seeds.
- Otoshi no GottsoRoot vegetables like daikon, carrot, and taro, along with shredded kelp, are simmered together in one big pot, then reheated and eaten from New Year's Eve through the first three days of the new year — a Gifu year-end dish where the kelp is said to carry a wish for a long, unbroken life.
Also from Gifu
- Akadatsu no SubuteThe red-purple leaf stalk of taro, called akadatsu, has its fibers removed and is salt-rubbed before being dressed in a sweetened vinegar — a dish of Yamagata City on land whose lime-poor, thin soil suited taro cultivation, once said to be fed to new mothers to aid recovery.
- Ayu NarezushiAyu heading downriver to spawn in autumn, often carrying roe, are salted and stuffed with freshly cooked rice, then packed in a barrel to ferment for about two months — a narezushi of Gifu City said to have been made from fish caught at the Nagara River's cormorant fishery and once presented to the shogunate.
- Ayu ZosuiAyu, grilled plain until fragrant, is flaked and briefly simmered with dashi and rice into a light porridge — a Gifu river-fish dish said to have begun as a way to use ayu too damaged from fishing to sell whole, often served as the closing course at restaurants specializing in ayu.
- FunamisoCrucian carp, first grilled plain, simmers for hours with rehydrated soybeans, then finishes in soybean miso and coarse sugar — a river-fish dish of the Seino region, where the miso's strong umami is said to soften the fish's characteristic edge, simmered until the flesh falls apart as a winter keeping food.
- Ayu no ShioyakiAyu are salted all over, given a decorative touch of salt on fin and tail, then grilled over charcoal on both sides — a river-fish dish of Gifu, said to draw on fish caught fresh at the 1,300-year-old Nagara River cormorant fishery or at the traditional yana weirs that channel fish into a catch.
- Gohei MochiCrushed rice is skewered and grilled, then glazed with a walnut- or peanut-flecked sauce — a dish of the Tono and Hida areas where soy-based sauce dominates north of the old Nakasendo road and miso-based sauce south of it, traditionally served to celebrate the new rice harvest or to honor a guest.