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Kujira no Nanbanni
Kujira no nanbanni — whale meat and skin simmered miso-style with chili
Whale meat and skin are simmered with root vegetables, finished with red chili and miso, in this dish from the Nagato and Shimonoseki area. Nagato has whaled since the Edo period, and the memorial rites still held there honor the whales that were said to have brought the town its prosperity.
- Origin: Yamaguchi
- About 790 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Whale meat and skin are simmered with root vegetables such as taro and burdock, then finished with red chili and miso, in this dish from the Nagato and Shimonoseki area. Including the skin lends the dish a silky, gelatinous texture that meets the sweetness of the root vegetables and the richness of the miso, making for a warming, hearty meal. A custom of making it on turning-point days such as New Year's Eve and the seasonal Setsubun holiday, for the good luck said to come from eating something large, is also said to persist.
How it's made
Whale meat is cut into manageable pieces, and konnyaku is torn by hand and parboiled. Taro, daikon, carrot, and burdock are cut into rough chunks, with the burdock soaked in vinegared water to remove bitterness. Ginger and whale meat are stir-fried in oil and set aside, then the konnyaku and vegetables are stir-fried before the whale meat is returned to the pot and dashi is added. Mirin, sake, sugar, and soy sauce go in next, and once the vegetables are tender, sliced red chili and miso are stirred in to finish the seasoning.
Why it took this shape
Shimonoseki has long had ties to whales, and Nagato is said to be among the earliest whaling regions in the country. Because whales migrate south along the Sea of Japan coast from autumn into winter, hunting took place during that season, and using both the lean meat and the skin appears to have become the standard way to use the catch without waste. Memorial rites honoring the whales that brought prosperity to the area are still held today, with that sense of gratitude said to carry through into the dish as well.
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 Yamaguchi
- Chikin Chikin GoboBite-size fried chicken and deep-fried burdock are tossed in a sweet soy glaze in this dish, born in Yamaguchi's school lunches. A nutrition teacher is said to have devised it around 1995 from recipes submitted by families, and its catchy, rhythmic name helped it spread into a statewide favorite.
- Chisha NamasuKakichisha, an heirloom crinkled lettuce grown around Shimonoseki, is torn by hand and tossed with vinegared miso, flaked grilled fish, or whitebait. It is said to have been devised by the Mori domain's people after being impoverished by the Battle of Sekigahara, and is also known as "chishamomi."
- Choshu KurokashiwaSaid to draw on the blood of Kurokashiwa, a natural-monument fowl native to Yamaguchi and Shimane, developed into a jidori by a Yamaguchi research station and finished and named by a poultry farm; reportedly free-ranged for 80–100 days.
- Fugu no KaraagePufferfish, marinated in soy sauce and sake, is coated in potato starch and deep-fried—a homely dish from the Shimonoseki and Hagi areas. While pricier tiger pufferfish goes into sashimi and hot pot, the more affordable shirosabafugu species is the one most often fried this way.
- Fuku SashiPufferfish sashimi is sliced so thin it becomes translucent, then arranged in a chrysanthemum pattern in this Shimonoseki dish. Locals call the fish "fuku," a homophone for good fortune, and eat it with citrus ponzu and scallion; the practice traces to 1888, when eating pufferfish was legalized in Yamaguchi alone.
- GobomakiLizardfish skin, a byproduct of making fish cakes, is wrapped around a skewer of burdock root and grilled with a basting sauce—a dish from Hagi. Because it uses lizardfish, prized for the region's grilled fish cakes, seafood processors often make the two together, and it is a fixture of festival and cherry-blossom bento.