Grilled
Iwana Shioyaki
Iwana shioyaki — salt-grilled char
Char, a fish found only in clear mountain streams, is skewered, salted, and slow-grilled over charcoal — Kurihara in Miyagi is said to have been the first place in Japan to farm it successfully, prized for flesh with a clean sweetness and no off odor.
- Origin: Miyagi Kurihara
- About 360 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
A simple dish of char, a fish found only in clear mountain streams, skewered, salted, and grilled slowly over charcoal. The skin turns crisp and toasty while the flesh carries a faint sweetness with no off-flavor, it is said. Farmed char raised in clean water is said to be especially mild, with even the skin tender, and a plain salt grill is said to bring that character out directly.
How it's made
The char's belly is slit open to remove the innards and gills, rinsed clean, then skewered. It is salted all over and grilled slowly over charcoal. A simple method that lets the whole fish, head to tail, be eaten, it is said to carry little of the off-flavor typical of river fish, making it an ingredient that adapts easily to Japanese, Western, and Chinese cooking alike.
Why it took this shape
Miyagi is said to have been the first in Japan to farm char, a fish that lives only in the clear water of headstreams. The development of farming techniques, making a fish otherwise hard to obtain in the wild available reliably, is thought to have supported a food culture built around this simple grilled dish, long loved as an everyday local taste, down to today.
Dishes in the same style
- Abutte KamoSmall damselfish are salted overnight, then grilled whole, scales and innards left on — a bony fish often passed over elsewhere, but said to have caught on in Hakata Bay after a Meiji-era glut led someone to salt and grill the excess.
- Gohei MochiFreshly cooked non-glutinous rice is pounded, pressed flat on a skewer, and grilled with a miso glaze. Said to have originated in the mountainous Chubu region, it's traditionally made the night before a festival praying for safety in mountain work.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Miyagi
- Aburafu DonDeep-fried wheat gluten, shaped into a log, is simmered in a sweet-savory broth and set with egg over rice, katsudon-style — a Tome City bowl said to trace to a tofu shop's shelf-stable gluten product, later turned into a bowl dish by a local innkeeper.
- AzaraNapa cabbage pickled long enough to turn sour is simmered slowly with rockfish trimmings and sake lees — a Kesennuma dish said to taste even better cold, or reheated the next day, long loved as everyday food.
- Bakke MisoButterbur sprouts picked in early spring — called 'bakke' locally — are boiled, chopped, and worked into a paste with walnuts and miso, said to be prized for helping clear the body of winter's buildup, spooned over rice or grilled fish.
- Donko JiruDonko, a brown hakeling landed at Ishinomaki and Kesennuma ports, is simmered in miso with daikon and tofu — a fish said to be considered lucky for money, given its wide mouth and narrow tail, and offered at the autumn ebisu-ko festival.
- Ebi MochiPaddy shrimp caught in irrigation channels and ponds are seasoned with soy sauce and sake, then folded whole into freshly pounded mochi — a Kurihara dish said to be served, red against white, to guests over New Year's.
- Fusube MochiLoach, grilled plain then smoked over an irori hearth, is ground to powder and simmered with grated daikon and burdock in a soy-chili sauce, then folded into freshly pounded mochi — said to be a mochi dish born of inland Kurihara's distance from the sea.