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Hoshi Imo
Hoshi Imo — sweet potato slices sun- and wind-dried into a chewy sweet
Steamed sweet potato is sliced thin and dried in the sea wind — a technique said to have come from Shizuoka, now centered on Hitachinaka, which leads the country in output. The result is naturally sweet with a chewy, dense bite.
- Origin: Ibaraki Hitachinaka
- About 110 km northeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
Steamed sweet potatoes are sliced thin and dried in the sun, caught by strong sea winds, over about a week — a simple preserved sweet made with just a few steps. The moisture leaves behind a concentrated natural sweetness and a soft, chewy bite, and racks of drying potatoes outside farmhouses were once a familiar sign of winter. It's eaten as is, or worked into tempura batter or baked cakes.
How it's made
Sweet potatoes are steamed skin-on until soft, then peeled while still hot, with the bitter ends cut away thickly. They're sliced about a centimeter thick along the grain and laid without overlapping on trays to dry in a well-ventilated spot for about a week, flipped partway through so both sides dry evenly — the result turns soft and chewy, sometimes with a faint white bloom on the surface.
Why it took this shape
The strong sea winds along the coast suited the drying process, and hoshi-imo is said to have taken root here for that reason. Its long shelf life and convenience helped it spread among ordinary households, though production nearly stopped during the war years when sweet potatoes themselves became a staple food; afterward, with encouragement from the prefecture, it was revived in homes and production areas alike.
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
Contrast
- Nakaminato YakisobaA yakisoba enjoyed for more than sixty years in Nakaminato, part of Hitachinaka city in Ibaraki. Its identity rests on a chewy, hand-stretched noodle steamed in a bamboo basket, a local soul food that has been entered at B-1 Grand Prix events.
- Kiriboshi ImoSteamed sweet potato is sliced thin and dried in the sun. Local lore ties the potato's arrival to a rescued Satsuma ship, and the region's dry winter wind and long daylight hours are said to have suited it well to drying.
Also from Ibaraki
- Aka MochiReddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.