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Shioika no Sunomono
Shioika no sunomono — salted squid dressed with cucumber and wakame
Salted squid, once carried inland along Shinshu's old salt road, is soaked to draw out the salt, then dressed with cucumber and wakame in vinegar — a preserved seafood from before refrigeration, still common on summer tables.
- Origin: Nagano
- About 180 km northwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Whole squid preserved in salt is soaked at length to draw the salt back out, then sliced thin and tossed with cucumber and wakame seaweed in vinegar. A firm, springy bite and a lingering hint of salt are said to be the appeal, playing well against the sharp tang of the vinegar. Many households are said to keep salted squid on hand in the refrigerator through summer, when this dish still turns up regularly at the table.
How it's made
Because salted squid carries such a strong salt content, it's first soaked at length to draw the salt back out. Once desalted, it's sliced thin and tossed in vinegar with cucumber and wakame -- the standard preparation, people say. Some households vary it further, boiling the squid into a salad or frying it as tempura.
Why it took this shape
Landlocked Nagano is said to have received salt and seafood from the coast along several routes known as the 'salt roads,' including the Chikuni Kaido. Squid boiled and then packed in salt is said to have begun as a byproduct of the salt trade itself, but in an age before refrigeration it's said to have been prized as a rare taste of the sea. It's thought to have also served as a way to replace the salt lost to summer sweat.
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.
- Foods to look for in summerA guide to foods often seen in Japan around summer — eel on the Day of the Ox, hiyashi chuka, somen, shaved ice, edamame with beer, and hamo — with rough pointers for finding them.
- 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.
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
- Ego no SumisoaeEgo-gusa seaweed is simmered down, poured into a mold and set firm, then sliced like konnyaku sashimi and dipped in a mustard vinegar-miso. Said to have arrived via peddlers along the old salt road from the Sea of Japan coast, it's considered essential at Obon and family occasions in northern and central Nagano.
- YataraCucumber, eggplant, the sharp local chili called botankosho, and miso-pickled daikon are all chopped fine and mixed together, then spooned over hot rice — a staple of northern Nagano said to be named yatara, 'haphazardly,' for how freely anything gets thrown in.
- Shimidaikon no Otaue no NimonoDaikon dried through repeated nightly freezing and daytime thawing simmers with herring and kelp — a dish once served in Nagano as part of the rice-planting feast, honoring the hard labor of transplanting seedlings by hand.
Also from Nagano
- Anyoji RamenSaku's miso ramen built around Anyoji miso, held to be the root of Shinshu miso.
- Gudakusan Miso ShiruRoot vegetables like daikon, carrot, and burdock go generously into this everyday miso soup of Nagano. Packing it with vegetables is said to allow less miso overall, and wheat dumplings are sometimes dropped in to make it a meal in itself.
- HangoroshiSticky rice, pounded only halfway to a texture called hangoroshi, is coated in sweet bean paste or roasted soybean flour — eastern Nagano's version of botamochi and ohagi, called one name in spring and the other in autumn, a festive sweet that busy farm households could put together quickly.
- Hitashi MameGreen soybeans are boiled until still faintly crisp, then steeped in a lightly seasoned dashi — a dish of northern and eastern Nagano also made with the saddle-marked kurakake bean, sometimes paired with herring roe as part of New Year's osechi.
- Hoshikabocha no EgomaaeKabocha squash, sliced into strips and sun-dried until brittle, is rehydrated and tossed in ground perilla seed — a preserved dish of the Kinasa area born from the need to keep squash, which spoils easily over winter, also used simmered or as filling for oyaki.
- Hoba MakiRice-flour dough kneaded with hot water wraps sweet bean paste, then steams inside a magnolia leaf — a Kiso festival mochi. With no oak trees in the mountains, magnolia stood in, and locals say the leaf's scent settles in best the next day.