Hot pot & soups
Kujira Jiru
Kujira jiru — a hearty New Year soup of salted whale blubber and root vegetables
Salted whale blubber is parboiled to render off excess fat, then simmered in a big pot with daikon, carrot and potato — a New Year dish from around Hachinohe's old whaling grounds, said to deepen in flavor over several days.
- Origin: Aomori
- About 560 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
A soup built on salted whale blubber, repeatedly blanched and dry-roasted to render off excess fat, then simmered with daikon, carrot, burdock and potato in a miso or soy broth. Once the fat is thoroughly worked out, what remains has a firm, springy texture rather than any greasiness, and its concentrated savoriness becomes the broth's backbone, it is said.
How it's made
Whale skin and blubber are blanched repeatedly and dry-roasted to render out excess fat, said to be the key step. Potato alongside the usual root vegetables, daikon, carrot, burdock, is a distinguishing touch, and the soup is typically made in a large pot with several vegetables and tofu, meant to be eaten over several days starting at New Year, it is said. Grilled square mochi is sometimes added to turn it into a New Year zoni.
Why it took this shape
Hachinohe was once home to a whaling base, and a whale-eating food culture is said to have developed in the surrounding area as a result. Drawing on the whale's sheer size, the soup is said to have been eaten as a New Year celebration dish carrying a wish for a big catch in the year ahead. The broth is said to improve with each passing day, which is thought to be why the custom of eating it across the New Year holiday took hold.
Before you go
- Foods to look for in winterA guide to foods often seen in Japan around winter — nabe hot pot, fugu, oysters, crab, year-end soba, and osechi — with rough pointers for finding them.
- 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
- Aichi Miso OdenA pot of sweet red miso sits in the center of the simmering pot, and daikon, tofu, and other ingredients simmered in dashi are dipped into it before eating. While soy-based Kanto-style oden spread in Edo, Aichi is said to have settled on dipping in soybean miso instead.
- Aichi ZoniSquare mochi and mochina, a traditional Owari green, are served in a plain clear broth for New Year — a notably simple zoni. It's speculated that using miso so often in daily cooking is exactly why a clear broth is chosen for this festive occasion, deliberately leaving miso out.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Hachinohe RamenA light soy broth of dried fish and local chicken bones, with thin wavy noodles.
- Kujira no TareMeat from a Baird's beaked whale is marinated in soy sauce, sake, and ginger, then air-dried into a jerky-like preserve — bark-black and plain to look at, born of preservation before refrigeration, and still something people who left southern Boso are said to bring home as a taste of it.
Also from Aomori
- BekomochiColored strips of glutinous and non-glutinous rice-flour dough are bundled and steamed so each slice reveals a pattern — a Boys' Day treat from rice-poor Shimokita, its designs elaborated around Oma town.
- HittsumiHand-torn pieces of kneaded wheat dough are simmered in a chicken-and-soy broth with carrot and burdock — a dish from the old Nanbu domain spanning southeastern Aomori and northern Iwate, once a rice substitute in lean years.
- KakkeThin buckwheat dough is cut into triangles, simmered with daikon and tofu, and dipped in garlic miso — said to have begun when the Nanbu domain banned fine-cut soba, leaving people to eat the offcuts instead.
- Mame ShitogiMashed boiled green soybeans are kneaded with rice flour and sugar into a log and sliced — a Nanbu-region sweet that stretched scarce rice with beans, once offered to the mountain and harvest gods.
- Aomori ShamorockSaid to be developed by Aomori's livestock experiment station over roughly two decades of research from a shamo and Barred Plymouth Rock cross; reportedly reared about 100 days for cockerels and 120 for hens, 50–60 days longer than a standard broiler.
- GapparamochiLeftover rice or rice flour is sweetened with brown sugar and black sesame, poured into a pan and pan-fried on both sides — a Tsugaru snack said to have started as a way to use up the dregs from making rice-starch glue.