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Niimoji
Niimoji — taro stem pickled tart and chilled for summer
Peeled taro stem is briefly simmered in a two- or three-part vinegar mix, kept crisp, and chilled — eaten when summer heat dulls the appetite, with each household said to keep its own balance of sour and sweet.
- Origin: Saga
- About 910 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Mizuimo, a water taro, is peeled and steeped in a sweetened vinegar dressing; keeping its crisp, crunchy texture is considered standard, and the balance of sweet and tart is said to vary by household and region. When dried taro stem is used instead, it's rubbed and rehydrated in water first. It's said to keep for about a week in the refrigerator as a standing side dish. It's said to have long been cherished locally as a signature taste of summer.
How it's made
The taro is cut and soaked in water to draw out bitterness, then briefly simmered in a mix of vinegar, sugar, and sliced chili before being topped with julienned ginger. Overcooking is said to spoil the crunch, so it's watched closely. Dried taro stem, when used, is rehydrated in water before vinegar is added and it's boiled, and the dish is said to taste best served well chilled. The exact seasoning is said to differ slightly from one household to the next.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to have long been valued during Saga's hot summers. Because it keeps for a while refrigerated, it's also become a household staple, served as an offering during the Bon festival or as a side when entertaining guests. The particular balance of tart and sweet is said to be passed down as each family's own recipe. The dish is also said to go by slightly different names depending on the area within the prefecture. It's described as a piece of preservation know-how passed down from a time before refrigerators.
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 Saga
- Ara no SugataniA grouper weighing ten kilos or more is simmered whole in a giant pot over the better part of a day — the showpiece of the hospitality dishes women prepare for guests during the Karatsu-kunchi festival, said to have started as a postwar display of one-upmanship.
- FunankoguiCrucian carp, wrapped whole in kelp, simmers for hours with daikon and other roots until even the bones turn soft — a winter protein source from the lean season on the Ariake Sea, and in Kashima, an offering to the god of good fortune at New Year.
- Futsu MochiPounded mochi is worked through with boiled mugwort and wrapped around sweet bean paste — where much of Japan offers diamond-shaped rice cakes at the Doll Festival, parts of Saga offer this mugwort mochi instead, and it doubles as a snack marking spring's arrival.
- Go DofuSoy milk is set not with nigari but kudzu starch, giving this Arita specialty a softer, glossier bite than ordinary tofu — served with sesame-soy as a side, or with black sugar syrup and soybean flour as a dessert.
- Ika no KakeaeSquid, daikon, and carrot are tossed in a vinegared miso dressing thick with ground sesame — a style of dish found across Japan, but called 'kakeae' in Saga, where fatty mackerel sometimes stands in for squid at autumn festivals.