Processed staples ── Nerimono (fish-paste products)
Gobomaki
Gobomaki — burdock root skewered, wrapped in fish skin, and grilled
Lizardfish skin, a byproduct of making fish cakes, is wrapped around a skewer of burdock root and grilled with a basting sauce—a dish from Hagi. Because it uses lizardfish, prized for the region's grilled fish cakes, seafood processors often make the two together, and it is a fixture of festival and cherry-blossom bento.
- Origin: Yamaguchi Hagi
- About 770 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Lizardfish skin, a byproduct of making fish cake, is wrapped around a skewer of burdock root and grilled while basted with sauce, in this dish from Hagi. Lizardfish is a prized fish used for grilled fish cake, and its skin retains a deep savoriness that meets burdock's earthy aroma and the sauce's sweet-savory glaze over the char of the grill. Seafood processors often make it alongside their fish cakes, and the flavor varies somewhat from one producer to the next.
How it's made
Lizardfish is filleted into three pieces to separate flesh from skin, and the skin is marinated in a basting sauce. Burdock root is threaded onto a metal skewer, wrapped in the lizardfish skin, then turned over the fire as it grills, taking on a browned, fragrant crust. Basting repeatedly while it cooks is said to be the key step for building that color and aroma. Making full use of a byproduct from fish-cake production, it continues to be made on the same processing lines today.
Why it took this shape
Facing both the Seto Inland Sea and the Sea of Japan, Yamaguchi is said to have long developed processed foods built around the sea's bounty. Hagi in particular has a long history of fish-cake making, and wrapping burdock in the lizardfish skin appears to have spread as a way to use the fish without waste. It has taken root in local life as a dish essential to festivals, guests, and cherry-blossom-viewing bento.
Before you go
- How to use a convenience storeA quick guide to choosing rice balls and hot snacks, buying coffee, paying by cash, IC card, or tap payment, using the eat-in corner, and sorting your trash — the basics for a first visit.
- How to shop in a depachika (department store food hall)A guide to browsing prepared foods and bento, choosing wagashi as a gift with a good shelf life, sampling etiquette, end-of-day discounts, asking for cold packs and wrapping, and finding your way around a depachika floor.
- Izakaya customsFrom the small starter dish called otoshi, the classic "for now, a draft beer" first order, ordering a little at a time, choosing tare or shio for yakitori, soy sauce dishes, a closing course, and last orders and smoking rules.
Dishes in the same style
- Ago ChikuwaChikuwa made from the surimi of flying fish, called "ago" in Tottori. A knife through the firm grilled skin sends up a fragrant crackle, and it turns out darker than ordinary chikuwa. It's a taste of early summer, in season through the fish's spawning run from spring into summer.
- Ago-yakiAgo-yaki is Izumo noyaki made from flying-fish paste, fire-baked without a skewer. Its crackling surface and refined sweetness make it a favorite travel souvenir from Shimane.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Yamaguchi
- Chikin Chikin GoboBite-size fried chicken and deep-fried burdock are tossed in a sweet soy glaze in this dish, born in Yamaguchi's school lunches. A nutrition teacher is said to have devised it around 1995 from recipes submitted by families, and its catchy, rhythmic name helped it spread into a statewide favorite.
- Chisha NamasuKakichisha, an heirloom crinkled lettuce grown around Shimonoseki, is torn by hand and tossed with vinegared miso, flaked grilled fish, or whitebait. It is said to have been devised by the Mori domain's people after being impoverished by the Battle of Sekigahara, and is also known as "chishamomi."
- Choshu KurokashiwaSaid to draw on the blood of Kurokashiwa, a natural-monument fowl native to Yamaguchi and Shimane, developed into a jidori by a Yamaguchi research station and finished and named by a poultry farm; reportedly free-ranged for 80–100 days.
- Fugu no KaraagePufferfish, marinated in soy sauce and sake, is coated in potato starch and deep-fried—a homely dish from the Shimonoseki and Hagi areas. While pricier tiger pufferfish goes into sashimi and hot pot, the more affordable shirosabafugu species is the one most often fried this way.
- Fuku SashiPufferfish sashimi is sliced so thin it becomes translucent, then arranged in a chrysanthemum pattern in this Shimonoseki dish. Locals call the fish "fuku," a homophone for good fortune, and eat it with citrus ponzu and scallion; the practice traces to 1888, when eating pufferfish was legalized in Yamaguchi alone.
- Gube JiruGube—small limpets, two to three centimeters across, gathered from rocky shores and breakwaters—are simmered into both the stock and the filling of this miso soup. It comes from Mishima, an island about 45 kilometers off Hagi's coast, where it was eaten not only by fishing families but by farming households near the shore.