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Hone Kajiri
Hone kajiri — bone-in wild boar or pork simmered for hours and eaten by hand
Bone-in wild boar or pork is simmered from cold water for about three hours and seasoned with nothing but salt — named, it is said, for how everyone sucks the marrow from the bone, a banquet dish in Oku-Kuma said to trace back to hunters' cooking.
- Origin: Kumamoto Yunomae
- About 900 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Bone-in cuts of wild boar or pork — ribs, back, pelvis — simmered in water alone for about three hours, then simply seasoned with salt. The meat cooks until it falls right off the bone, and people are said to suck the marrow from the bones too, which is where the dish's name, meaning 'bone gnawing,' comes from. It's a dish from the area known as Oku-Kuma within the Hitoyoshi-Kuma region, said to have been served at banquets and other gatherings of many people.
How it's made
Bone-in wild boar or pork is placed in a large pot and simmered in water alone for about three hours. Scum and fat are carefully skimmed off along the way, and once the meat is soft enough to fall from the bone, it's simply seasoned with salt to finish. Some versions add kelp or aromatics like ginger, or scent it with local Kuma shochu. The broth, rich with everything rendered out of the meat and bones, is said to work just as well as a base for ramen or another hot pot.
Why it took this shape
In the area known as Oku-Kuma within the Hitoyoshi-Kuma region, the dish is said to have long been served at banquets and other gatherings of many people. It's said to have grown out of hunters' cooking after a wild boar hunt, born from making full use of the meat still clinging to the bones after butchering. Eating it by hand, gnawing straight at the bone, is said to reflect its character as a dish meant to be shared among a crowd. Wild boar is said to be eaten mainly during hunting season, while the pork version is made for local events year-round.
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.
- What to know if you have dietary restrictionsHow allergen labeling works, where fish-based dashi, pork, and alcohol turn up, and phrases for checking with staff.
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 Kumamoto
- Amakusa DaioA large-bodied meat fowl once kept in Amakusa in the Meiji and Taisho eras, said to have died out in the early Showa period before Kumamoto prefecture spent roughly a decade recreating it; reportedly among the biggest jidori breeds, shipped at 120–150 days.
- Gane-ageSweet potato cut into batons is coated in a ginger-sweetened batter and deep-fried. "Gane" is Amakusa dialect for crab, said to describe the shape of the fried strands, and the dish also serves as a vegetarian offering at Buddhist services.
- Tai SomenSomen noodles are simmered in the broth of sea bream head and bones cooked down whole — a celebratory dish said to reflect the influence of nearby Shimabara's somen tradition. In Yamato's Mamihara, a version called "taimen" simmers the whole fish instead.
- Tako MeshiSun-dried octopus is rehydrated, chopped, and either cooked into rice with burdock and carrot or mixed in afterward — a dish that leans on the concentrated flavor of dried octopus, known for the summer sight of octopus hung out to dry in Amakusa's Ariake.
- Baniku SobaFrom the Aso area of Kumamoto: hot soba topped with horse meat simmered sweet and salty. It's said to carry the history of a region where horse meat took root as a restorative food for the injured and ill.
- ButaaeBoiled octopus and eggplant are stir-fried in a sweet, spicy barley miso — an Amakusa home dish said to have begun as a stand-in for pork, once hard to come by, using the local octopus instead while keeping the old name, "pork mix."