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Zoni
Fukui zoni — a plain miso New Year soup of round mochi and turnip
Round mochi and turnip are simmered in a kelp broth, finished with miso and a topping of bonito flakes — a plain New Year soup often served without other fillings, in an everyday soup bowl rather than a special one. In the Reinan area some households top it with brown sugar.
- Origin: Fukui
- About 320 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Round mochi and turnip simmered in a pot lined with sheet kelp, finished with miso and a generous topping of bonito flakes — plain in construction, since many households skip other ingredients entirely, but the mochi's chewy pull meets the miso's saltiness and the bonito's aroma in every bite. The turnip is said to carry a wordplay wish for a household's fortunes to rise.
How it's made
Sheet kelp lines the bottom of the pot, thinly sliced turnip half-moons and round mochi go in with water, and everything simmers until soft before miso is stirred in and the soup ladled into a bowl topped with a heap of bonito flakes. Ingredients are kept minimal, and it's said to be served straight in an everyday soup bowl rather than a special one. Part of the Reinan area is said to keep a sweeter version, finished with brown sugar over the miso.
Why it took this shape
Mochi is considered an auspicious food essential to celebrations, and eating zoni at New Year's as a share of the offering made to the year's god is said to have taken root across the prefecture. Kitamae cargo ships once calling at Wakasa Bay are said to be behind the sweeter, brown-sugar version found in the Reinan area, and the dish's look is still said to vary noticeably from district to district.
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.
- Food for Obon and the harvest moon (tsukimi)A guide to the meat-free shojin ryori and somen served at Obon, and the tsukimi dango offered on the night of the harvest moon.
- At teishoku diners, shokudo, and machi-chukaA guide to the teishoku set-meal format, free rice refills, table placement, and paying at a shokudo-style diner.
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 Fukui
- Atsuage no NitaThick fried tofu, blanched and scored with a cross cut, is simmered sweet-savory in dashi, soy sauce, and mirin with a dash of ginger juice. Fukui leads the country in fried-tofu consumption, and this dish is said to have moved from a Honkoko feast dish into everyday cooking.
- BokkakeThick fried tofu, burdock, and shirataki noodles are simmered in a bonito broth and poured hot, broth and all, over freshly cooked rice — eaten for over a century since the early 1910s. In Katsuyama it is said to take a chazuke-like turn, topped with fish cake and mitsuba.
- ChameshiRoasted soybeans are steeped in hot roasted barley tea, and rice is then cooked in that same tea — a dish from the old post town of Imajo, said to descend from Nara's 'nara-chameshi'. It is said to be indispensable at memorial services, Honkoko, and for daughters visiting home.
- Choju NamasuGround sesame is worked into a paste with miso, thick fried tofu, mustard, and vinegar, then tossed with shredded daikon, carrot, and snap peas — a New Year salad whose name literally wishes long life, also said to appear at memorial services and Honkoko.
- Decchi YokanSweet red bean paste is set with agar, sugar, and a pinch of salt into a thin, water-yokan-like winter confection. It is said to have begun when a young apprentice, home for New Year from a Kyoto shop, stretched a bar of yokan with water to share with neighbors, eaten by the kotatsu.
- Echizen Oroshi SobaA cold soba from Echizen, Fukui, topped with grated daikon and bonito flakes. It is said to originate with a soba maker a local lord brought from Kyoto to promote buckwheat as an emergency food crop.