Processed staples ── Nerimono (fish-paste products)
Kuro Hanpen
Kuro-hanpen — Shizuoka's dark, unbleached fish cake
Kuro-hanpen is a Shizuoka fish cake made from mackerel or sardine paste, worked in with skin and bone, and shaped into a half-moon. Its blue-gray color and strong fish flavor are its signature, and it's a fixture in local oden.
- Origin: Shizuoka City, Shizuoka
- About 150 km southwest of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Paste from mackerel or sardine, ground in with skin and bone, shaped into a half-moon. Its blue-gray color stands in contrast to the white hanpen found in the Kanto region, and it's said to carry a much stronger fish flavor. Beyond eating it plain, it's also grilled or deep-fried in a range of dishes.
How it's made
Mackerel or sardine is worked into paste along with its skin and bone, bound with grated yam or similar, shaped into a half-moon, and boiled. Unlike white hanpen made from white fish alone, using oily fish down to the bone is said to be what gives it its deeper color and flavor. Grinding the bone in as well takes extra prep work, and the exact ratio is said to differ from maker to maker.
Why it took this shape
Landing plenty of oily fish from waters like Suruga Bay is thought to be behind a habit of using whatever fish was at hand, bone and skin included, without waste. Both its raw fish and its method split off from Kanto's white hanpen, and it's said to have settled in as a fish cake distinct to Shizuoka. It's also a fixture in oden, said to pair especially well with the darker broth of Shizuoka-style oden.
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.
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 Shizuoka
- Abekawa MochiFresh-pounded rice cake is dusted in soybean flour mixed with sugar. Named for the Abe River, it's said to have been famous among Tokaido travelers as a teahouse specialty and to appear in the travel novel Tokaidochu Hizakurige.
- BokumeshiSteamed eel and shaved burdock are simmered together and folded into freshly cooked rice. Its name is said to trace to oversized eels unfit for sale, used in staff meals at eel farms along the Oi River — a mixed rice dish of the region.
- Fuji KinkaBred by Shizuoka Prefecture by crossing its own Duroc line, Fujirock, with Jinhua, a rare breed from China's Zhejiang province — found only in Shizuoka. Said to combine Jinhua's tenderness with Fujirock's marbling.
- Fujieda Asa RamenA town that eats ramen at breakfast — often a hot bowl followed by a cold one.
- Fujinomiya YakisobaIt grew up as a postwar snack at Fujinomiya's candy shops and okonomiyaki stalls. Its identity rests on three local staples: chewy steamed noodles, pork-lard cracklings called nikukasu, and a sardine-powder topping called dashiko.
- GawaRaw bonito is minced and mixed into a chilled miso broth with cucumber, pickled plum, and shiso. Its name is said to come from the "gawa-gawa" sound of stirring miso into ice water aboard a fishing boat — originally a summer meal made at sea.