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Nama Yuba
Nama yuba — the fresh skin skimmed from simmering soy milk
The skin that forms on the surface of simmering soy milk is skimmed off fresh — a specialty of Minobu town, said to have begun when the priest Nichiren's disciples made it as an easily digested source of nutrition after he entered Mount Minobu. It is cut bite-sized and eaten with wasabi soy sauce.
- Origin: Yamanashi Minobu
- About 120 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Soymilk made from soybeans is simmered slowly, and the thin film that forms on its surface is skimmed off. Soft and silky, a single bite is said to release the soybean's own faint sweetness and aroma. Cut into bite-sized pieces and dipped in wasabi soy sauce, that soybean flavor is said to come through even more clearly.
How it's made
Soybeans are boiled, crushed, and strained through cloth into soymilk, which is then simmered slowly in a pot. The film that forms on the surface is gently lifted off, people say, and several varieties differing in thickness and texture are said to be made. Cutting it into bite-sized pieces and dipping it in wasabi soy sauce is said to be the standard way to eat it.
Why it took this shape
It's said to have begun when disciples, concerned for a monk who had entered the mountain at Minobu, made this as an easily digestible source of nutrition for him. Soybeans are rich in quality plant protein and fat, and the dish is said to have been valued as a Buddhist vegetarian food that sustained monks who abstained from meat. That so many producers remain in Minobu today seems to reflect a food culture tied to a life of mountain ascetic practice, carried down to now.
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 Yamanashi
- Amanatto no OsekihanMade without azuki or cowpea beans, glutinous rice is dyed red with food coloring and mixed with candied sweet beans — a Yamanashi take on celebratory red rice, sweet-salty with a sprinkle of sesame salt. A similarly sweet red rice is said to exist far away in Hokkaido and parts of Tohoku.
- AnbinSweet potato and wheat flour are kneaded with hot water, wrapped around bean paste, slapped flat, and steamed — a sweet from the Kyonan region. Its name is said to come from the slapping motion, revived in Ichikawamisato town's Rokugo area after a local school's closure sparked a heritage-food effort.
- Awabi no NigaiAbalone from Suruga Bay was soy-sauce-marinated and hauled in barrels by horse, the jostling and body heat said to have worked the flavor deep in — a specialty from landlocked Kofu. Sliced thin and paired with its liver, shiso, and cucumber, it endures as a taste of the sea inland.
- Azuki HotoHoto noodles, cut thicker than usual, are simmered in sweet azuki bean soup in place of mochi — a festival food in Yamanashi. The summer festival at Miwa Shrine in Hokuto city's Wakamiko area is nicknamed the 'hoto festival', and azuki's red color is said to ward off misfortune.
- Hirauchi TanmenA salt-based tanmen from Kofu, Yamanashi, built on wide, flat noodles said to feel almost like fettuccine. Bean sprouts, pork, and napa cabbage pile on top for a vegetable-heavy bowl carried on today by several shops around the prefecture.