Hot pot & soups
Mamebu Jiru
Mamebu jiru — a soy broth with walnut-filled wheat dumplings
Wheat dumplings stuffed with walnut are simmered in a soy-flavored dried sardine and kelp broth with root vegetables and grilled tofu — said to have begun as a noodle substitute in famine-prone Kuji, now a dish for weddings and funerals.
- Origin: Iwate Kuji
- About 530 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
A dish from Kuji's Yamagata district, made by simmering carrot, burdock and other vegetables, grilled tofu and dried gourd shavings, along with wheat dumplings filled with walnuts, called mamebu, in a soy broth built on dried sardine and kelp dashi. Some versions put brown sugar in the dumplings too, giving the broth's saltiness and the dumplings' sweetness a distinctive interplay, it is said.
How it's made
Vegetables, grilled tofu and dried gourd shavings are simmered in dried-sardine and kelp dashi along with wheat dumplings filled with walnuts. Fillings vary by area, walnut and brown sugar together, walnut alone, sometimes with a thickened broth, it is said. Dumplings are said to be made larger for celebrations and smaller for funerals.
Why it took this shape
In an Edo-era stretch of repeated crop failures, it is said these walnut-filled dumplings may have served as a stand-in for the noodles typically eaten on festive occasions. The name's origin has several accounts, from "bean-sized" to a wish for living a diligent, healthy life, and the dish is thought to have been handed down in households as a food for ceremonial occasions and New Year.
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
Also from Iwate
- Azuki BattoRested wheat dough cut into wide noodle strips is served in a sugar-sweetened red-bean broth — made along the Sanriku coast for building-raising and harvest celebrations, with a custom of eating it seven times on the seventh day of Obon for good health.
- Hecchoko DangoDumplings of millet and sorghum flour, each dimpled in the center, are simmered in a sweet red-bean soup — also called "ukiuki dango," a harvest-close treat from rice-poor northern Iwate where they float to the surface as they cook.
- Hina ManjuRice-flour dough tinted with food coloring is wrapped around red-bean paste and shaped into flowers, peaches or rabbits using wooden molds — tied to a doll-viewing custom in Hanamaki's Ohasama area, offered alongside kirisensho at the Girls' Festival.
- Hizu NamasuThin slices of cartilage from a salmon's head — "hizu" — are salted, cured in vinegar and tossed with daikon and carrot namasu — a rare delicacy from just one small part of the fish, a New Year dish where salmon run up Miyako Bay.
- Dento Mochi RyoriAn umbrella term for some 300 ways of dressing mochi — sweet red bean, edamame paste, walnut, natto, zoni and more. A domain-era custom of pounding mochi twice a month left Ichinoseki with a "mochi calendar" of 60-plus occasions a year and a formal ceremonial mochi course still observed today.
- Imo no Ko JiruAutumn taro is simmered with chicken, tofu, daikon and carrot in a soy broth — a fall favorite of the taro-growing Kitakami river valley, still enjoyed at riverside "imoni-kai" gatherings around Kitakami's Futako district.