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Denbu
Denbu — kintoki beans and root vegetables simmered sweet and salty
Parboiled kintoki or black beans are simmered with root vegetables like daikon and burdock, then finished sweet and salty in soy sauce and sugar. Said to be added to New Year and house-raising feasts as a wish for a hardworking, diligent life, playing on the word for beans, mame, which also means diligence.
- Origin: Tokushima
- About 510 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Denbu simmers pre-boiled kintoki or black beans together with root vegetables like daikon and burdock, seasoned sweet and savory with soy sauce and sugar — a dish resembling gomoku-mame. It also goes by names like "odenbu" or "renbu." The mealy texture of the beans, the crunch of the root vegetables, and the sweet-savory glaze combine into a dish rich in both protein from the beans and fiber from the vegetables. Some households add umeboshi for a touch of tartness.
How it's made
When par-boiling kintoki beans, adding cold water partway through the boil is said to be the trick to keeping the skins from wrinkling. Carrot, daikon, and burdock are joined by whatever else a household has on hand — fish cake, lotus root, fried tofu, kelp, or freeze-dried tofu — all cut into roughly one-centimeter cubes, then slowly simmered in dried-sardine dashi, soy sauce, sugar, and cooking sake. There's no fixed set of ingredients, so the result varies a little from home to home.
Why it took this shape
Denbu is said to have spread as a festive dish served alongside white-miso zōni and simmered vegetables at New Year's. Because beans are the centerpiece, the dish is said to carry a wish tied to the word "mame" (beans), which also means diligence — a hope for a hardworking, steady life. Its avoidance of costly ingredients is said to reflect an effort to let even poorer households celebrate the New Year properly, and black beans are sometimes used in place of kintoki beans for the occasion.
Before you go
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
- Osechi and zoni for the New YearA guide to the meaning behind osechi's tiered boxes, the regional differences in zoni (square vs. round mochi, clear vs. miso broth), and the nanakusa-gayu custom.
- Setsubun: ehomaki and lucky beansA guide to ehomaki, the uncut sushi roll said to be eaten facing a lucky direction on Setsubun, and to mamemaki, the bean-throwing custom with roasted lucky beans.
Dishes in the same style
- Agonoko UmaniThe roe of egg-bearing flying fish, caught only in early summer, is simmered in stock and soy sauce as an Oki bar snack. Its large grains and dense, sticky texture are prized as a delicacy said to be scarcer even than the fish's flesh.
- Funa MisoCrucian carp is simmered slowly with soybeans for around five hours, then finished in a sauce of red miso and coarse sugar. A freshwater fish dish of the Kiso rivers' lower basin, made with fatty winter carp simmered until the bones soften through.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Tokushima
- Amego no HirarayakiA flat stone is heated over a hearth for hours, then a border of miso is built on it to grill amego trout, stone tofu, and konjac — an outdoor dish from the Iya valley. Its name comes from hirara, a local word for a flat stone, and it is said to have long served as a dish for entertaining guests.
- Awa BanchaA post-fermented tea from Naka and Kamikatsu towns in Tokushima, fermented by lactic acid bacteria. Coarser leaves picked from midsummer on are boiled, packed into wooden barrels, fermented for roughly 10 days to two weeks, then sun-dried — said to give a refreshing sourness.
- Awa BitonRaised in the mountains of Awa City, Tokushima, at about 400 meters, on a feed centered on rice. Handlers are said to adjust the feed mix daily and avoid genetically modified crops where possible.
- Awa GyuPedigreed Japanese Black fattened in Tokushima, which gained recognition after being shown at a Tokyo meat market competition in 1962 — said to have a moist, fine-grained texture and modest fat.
- Awa no ItokoniSweet potato that has been boiled then dried — yude-boshi style — is rehydrated and simmered slowly with red beans for about two hours over low heat. Fitting for a region where drying vegetables is common in winter, it is said to be a warming side dish built on the concentrated flavor of dried sweet potato.
- Awa UiroRed bean paste mixed with rice flour and Awa wasanbon sugar is poured into a mold and steamed into a chewy cake. Said to have first been made to celebrate the completion of Awa wasanbon sugar in the Edo period, with related uiro cakes also found in Nagoya and Yamaguchi.