Hot pot & soups ── Nabe (hot pot)
Imoni
Imoni — a riverside autumn hot pot of taro and beef simmered together
Taro, beef, konnyaku, and scallion simmer together in a soy-based autumn hot pot said to trace to boatmen on the Mogami River, who cooked taro and dried cod on the riverbank while waiting out the delays of cargo transport. On the Shonai coast the same dish turns to pork and miso.
- Origin: Yamagata
- Soy-based & yosenabe
- About 290 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
Taro, beef, konnyaku, and scallions simmered in a soy-based broth make up this dish many in Yamagata grew up eating. Taro's fluffy texture pairs with a sweet-savory broth enriched by the beef's flavor. Along the Sea of Japan coast in Shonai, pork replaces beef and the broth is seasoned with miso instead, the local standard, it's said.
How it's made
Taro is peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces, then simmered with beef and scallions in soy sauce, sugar, and sake, the basic method. Beef and seasoning are added once the taro has softened, skimming off scum as it simmers, cooks say. Adding udon noodles at the end to finish the pot is also said to be a well-established custom.
Why it took this shape
Near what is now Nakayama, once the terminus of river trade on the Mogami, boatmen waiting for cargo to be claimed are said to have gathered on the riverbank to simmer local taro with dried cod from the cargo in a shared pot, the dish's likely start. Beef is said to have come into use around the early Showa era, and in Shonai, where pig farming was widespread, the dish is said to have shifted to pork and a miso-based broth instead.
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.
- At Yakiniku, Shabu-Shabu, and Hot PotGrilling your own meat at yakiniku, swishing thin slices at shabu-shabu, and sharing from the pot — the customs behind each.
Dishes in the same style
- Chanko NabeChicken, napa cabbage, tofu, and more simmer together in broth — a hot pot born in sumo stables, said to date to the Meiji era, when four-legged meat like beef and pork was avoided since touching a hand to the ground echoed a loss in the ring. Former wrestlers still run chanko restaurants around Ryogoku, keeping their stable's flavor.
- Damako NabeFreshly cooked rice, lightly pounded with a pestle and rolled into balls called 'damako', simmers in hinai-jidori chicken broth with burdock and Japanese parsley — said to have taken shape once fish from Lake Hachirogata grew scarce and chicken took their place.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Yamagata
- Akayu Karamiso RamenMiso ramen with a knob of chili miso in the center, dissolved gradually to shift the flavor.
- Akebi no Miso ZumeyakiThe bittersweet rind of the akebia fruit is stuffed with minced meat and maitake mushroom simmered in miso and sugar, tied with kitchen string, and grilled. Elsewhere in Japan the white pulp is what gets eaten, but Yamagata is said to hold onto the unusual custom of eating the rind instead.
- DongarajiruWinter cod caught in the coldest weeks goes into a miso soup head to tail, innards included — said to trace back to fishermen's cooking on the Shonai coast. The liver's richness carries the flavor, and the traditional way adds only a scrap of rock nori, no scallion.
- Hatahata no YuageHatahata, scaleless sailfin sandfish that crowd the Shonai coast to spawn, are boiled whole and eaten with nothing more than grated daikon and soy sauce — a simple winter fish dish. With no scales to remove, it is said to have become a fixture of Shonai's autumn and winter table.
- Hyoboshi no NimonoPurslane, called hyo, is picked in summer, boiled, and sun-dried into a keeping food, then rehydrated and simmered with shirataki, carrot, and fried tofu for New Year. The name is said to be played on for luck — a wish that something good might happen, hyotto, this year.
- Ita SobaA soba from the Murayama area of Yamagata, heaped onto a shallow cedar box. The custom of treating neighbors to soba after shared farm work favored a serving style everyone could eat from together.