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Yashouma
Yashouma — steamed rice-flour dumplings for the Buddha's memorial day
Rice flour is kneaded, steamed, and rolled into a log studded with green laver and black beans — a custom of northern and central Nagano for offering to Buddha on the February 15 memorial day, once handed out to children who went door to door.
- Origin: Nagano
- About 180 km northwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Rice flour is kneaded with hot water to an earlobe-soft dough, steamed, then worked with green laver, black beans, and sesame before being rolled into a long stick. Sliced, the cross-section is said to reveal patterns like petals or a weight-shaped knot -- part of its charm. Sliced yashouma is lightly sweet on its own, and if it hardens with time, people say it's just as good grilled or fried and finished with a sugar-soy glaze.
How it's made
Rice flour is mixed with sugar and salt, then hot water is worked in a little at a time until the dough reaches an earlobe softness. A handful is steamed, cooled in water, kneaded again, and rolled into a long stick with green laver, black beans, or sesame worked through it. Pressing chopsticks into the dough to raise a ridge, or shaping it into a triangle or a flower, is said to differ from one household to the next.
Why it took this shape
February 15th marks the day the Buddha is said to have died, and offering yashouma at the household altar on that day is said to be a custom rooted in the Hokushin and Chushin regions. Sticks made at home or at temples were shared out to children going door to door, and even in times when rice was precious, the memorial day seems to have been an occasion when rice-flour sweets were set aside for everyone. The long, plain stick shape seems a practical one too -- easy to slice thin and share among a crowd.
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
Contrast
- 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.
- TenyoseAgar liquid is poured over somen noodles or egg and set firm — a molded dish of the Suwa region, colored red for celebrations and green for solemn occasions, served to guests at the once-every-seven-years Onbashira festival.
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.
- 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.