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Taanmu Dingaku
Taanmu dingaku — Okinawan taro worked sweet into a dessert-like paste
Okinawa's own taro, sweetened and worked into a smooth paste — often served after a rich pork course, almost as dessert. Because young corms grow in a ring around the parent, taro is read as a sign of descendants flourishing, making it essential at New Year and Obon.
- Origin: Okinawa
- About 1560 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Taro grown in Okinawa's paddies is cooked down into a sweet, chestnut-paste-like dish, also called saataa daanmu. The taro's distinctive aroma and stickiness come through clearly, and served after a rich pork dish, it can double as a kind of dessert. This paddy-grown taro, a variety of taro cultivated in clean water, carries its own aroma and stickiness as a defining trait, and a garnish of lemon peel or ginger at the end brings out the aroma further.
How it's made
Taro is peeled and parboiled in hot water for about five minutes to draw out bitterness. It's simmered in a pot with water until soft, then sugar is added, and the mixture is worked with a wooden spatula into a smooth, chestnut-paste-like texture. Whether some taro texture is left intact or the whole thing is mashed smooth varies by region and household.
Why it took this shape
Because small cormlets grow around the parent taro, the plant is regarded as an auspicious symbol of family continuity, and the dish is said to have become indispensable at celebrations. The Shuri court is recorded as offering taro at New Year as a ceremonial food, and since the crop takes nearly a year to mature, farmers reportedly plan their planting a year in advance to have it ready in time. In recent years the taro has also found its way into pies and other sweets.
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 Okinawa
- Ashi TibichiPig's trotters are simmered for hours with kelp and daikon until the bone slides free on its own. Rooted in the belief that eating a body part heals the same part in the eater, it's traditionally favored by older people, anyone with trouble in the legs, or those minding their skin.
- AwamoriA distilled spirit from Okinawa made only from Thai rice and black koji, with every grain of rice turned into koji in a method called zen-koji-jikomi. Citric acid from the black koji is said to keep the mash from spoiling even in hot, humid conditions, and it's classified alongside shochu as a single-distillation spirit.
- Chii IrichiiPork blood is worked with pork meat, carrot, and wood-ear mushroom into a distinctive stir-simmered dish. Rooted in the same eat-what-ails-you logic as ashi tibichi, it was thought to guard against anemia, and it's traditionally offered before Lunar New Year and at memorial services.
- Chimu ShinjiPork liver and a native yellow carrot are simmered down almost like a medicinal decoction, meant for days the body needs support. It follows the kusuimun idea that food itself can be medicine, and is traditionally made for anemia or when someone's caught a cold.
- Gooyaa ChanpuruuBitter goya is stir-fried together with Okinawa's firm tofu and egg. A dish only earns the name champuru once tofu is in it, and this one has long served double duty — coaxing back a summer-flagged appetite while delivering vitamin C, now eaten year-round.
- HanazakeA distilled spirit made only on Yonaguni, Japan's westernmost island, at around 60 percent alcohol. Its raw materials and method are the same as awamori, but because its proof exceeds awamori's legal ceiling, it's classified as 'spirits' rather than awamori under the liquor tax law.