Home-style
Nara Noppei
Nara noppei — a thick vegetable stew made for the Kasuga shrine's December festival
A Nara vegetable stew of taro, daikon, and carrot simmered in a kelp-and-dried-shiitake stock, thickened naturally as the taro breaks down — a vegetarian dish. It is said to be served to participants at the Oyadokoro rite that precedes Kasuga Shrine's December festival.
- Origin: Nara City, Nara
- About 380 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Taro, daikon, carrot, deep-fried tofu, dried shiitake, and konjac are simmered together into a hearty stew. Made as a vegetarian dish using the soaking liquid from kelp and dried shiitake as stock, it gets a natural thickness as the taro breaks down while cooking.
How it's made
Stock is made from the soaking liquid of kelp and dried shiitake, then taro, daikon, carrot, deep-fried tofu, and konjac are added and simmered. Starch from the taro thickens the broth naturally, and on cold days it is served with extra liquid as a soup.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to have been served to people gathered for the purification rite held the day before the On-matsuri festival at Kasuga Taisha each December. The festival is said to have begun in the Heian period as a prayer for the people's peace amid famine and epidemic, and it continues today as the event that closes out Nara's year. Around this time, the deep-fried tofu used in the dish reportedly appears on shop shelves.
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 Nara
- Amago no KanroniRiver trout, called the queen of the mountain stream, first grilled plain and then simmered in roasted tea before being finished sweet and savory in soy sauce and mirin — a dish of the Yoshino and Uda districts. The fish is said to have little of a river-fish's usual edge, and the dish is remembered as a mother's home cooking.
- Asuka NabeA hot pot from Asuka Village of chicken and seasonal vegetables simmered in milk and dashi. It is said to trace to a dairy product brought from Tang China in the Asuka period and later reworked by monks who simmered their chickens in milk, taking its present form around the early Showa era.
- Ayu ZushiA whole sweetfish pressed onto vinegared rice, made along the Yoshino River. Sweetfish, raised on river-stone algae, are called kogyo, 'fragrant fish,' and the sushi is said to have become known in part because a sushi shop featured in a kabuki play actually existed in Nara.
- DengaraA sweet from Higashiyoshino and Kawakami villages: bean-paste mochi steamed inside magnolia leaves. It is made for Boys' Day, wishing a son success and safe growth, and because each leaf on a single branch is wrapped around its own mochi, the finished cluster hangs like a bunch of fruit.
- Hangesho MochiA Nara Basin mochi pounded from cracked wheat and glutinous rice around hangesho, the eleventh day after the summer solstice. It is made at the point when the wheat harvest and rice planting both wind down, and is also called sanaburi mochi for the rite that sends off the rice-field deity.