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Funankogui
Funankogui — whole crucian carp wrapped in kelp and slow-simmered with root vegetables
Crucian carp, wrapped whole in kelp, simmers for hours with daikon and other roots until even the bones turn soft — a winter protein source from the lean season on the Ariake Sea, and in Kashima, an offering to the god of good fortune at New Year.
- Origin: Saga Kashima
- About 930 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
River-caught crucian carp is wound tightly in cleaned kelp and simmered with seasonal vegetables like daikon, konjac, lotus root, and burdock, cooked down until the whole fish, bones included, turns tender enough to eat. It's said to carry a distinctive flavor without any fishy smell, which is part of why it's so cherished as a local dish. The seasoning liquid strained from miso is said to be what makes or breaks the flavor.
How it's made
Miso is hung in a cloth bag and left to strain naturally into a seasoning liquid. The fish is wound tightly in well-cleaned kelp and tied with a strip of dried gourd. Chunky-cut daikon, konjac, and other vegetables are brought to a boil in a pot, the wrapped fish is laid on top, and the strained miso liquid, starch syrup, sugar, and soy sauce are added before a long simmer over high heat, kept fully submerged the whole time. Straw is sometimes laid on the pot's bottom to keep things from scorching.
Why it took this shape
The fish is said to have been valued as a source of protein during the quiet winter fishing season. One account holds the dish began when people substituted this similarly shaped fish for one usually offered to a local guardian deity. It's reportedly cooked in a big pot for celebratory occasions and shared around the neighborhood, and in one city the custom of offering it to that deity on a set winter date is said to continue today.
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 Saga
- Ara no SugataniA grouper weighing ten kilos or more is simmered whole in a giant pot over the better part of a day — the showpiece of the hospitality dishes women prepare for guests during the Karatsu-kunchi festival, said to have started as a postwar display of one-upmanship.
- Futsu MochiPounded mochi is worked through with boiled mugwort and wrapped around sweet bean paste — where much of Japan offers diamond-shaped rice cakes at the Doll Festival, parts of Saga offer this mugwort mochi instead, and it doubles as a snack marking spring's arrival.
- Go DofuSoy milk is set not with nigari but kudzu starch, giving this Arita specialty a softer, glossier bite than ordinary tofu — served with sesame-soy as a side, or with black sugar syrup and soybean flour as a dessert.
- Hoshigaki NamasuJulienned daikon and dried persimmon are tossed with vinegar, yuzu juice, and soy — from Saga's Matsubai district, where curtains of drying persimmons hanging under the eaves mark the fall, and this dish is said to appear alongside New Year's osechi.
- Ika no KakeaeSquid, daikon, and carrot are tossed in a vinegared miso dressing thick with ground sesame — a style of dish found across Japan, but called 'kakeae' in Saga, where fatty mackerel sometimes stands in for squid at autumn festivals.
- Imari GyuJapanese Black fattened within Imari's JA district in Saga — sharing the same Tajima roots as Saga Gyu, but kept as a separate brand after the JA Saga merger of 2007 left Imari's cooperative outside it.