Noodles
Nyumen
Nyumen — thin wheat noodles served warm in a light dashi broth
A warm somen dish from Sakurai's Miwa district, birthplace of Miwa somen. The noodle-making craft is said to trace back to a prayer offered at Omiwa Shrine, and the same noodles are eaten chilled in summer and warm, as nyumen, through the winter.
- Origin: Nara Sakurai
- About 380 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A somen noodle dish served in a warm broth. Miwa somen, made in the city of Sakurai, is prized for its thin strands and smooth texture, and eating it hot is a different way of enjoying the noodle from the chilled somen of summer.
How it's made
Broth is heated and boiled Miwa somen noodles are added and simmered briefly. At home the noodles are sometimes used in place of pasta or glass noodles, and dishes such as somen carbonara or pan-fried somen have become more common as well.
Why it took this shape
According to tradition at Omiwa Shrine, wheat was sown in the village of Miwa as a prayer to save people suffering from disease and famine, and the resulting flour, kneaded with water and stretched into strings, is said to be the origin of somen. The technique of oiling and stretching the dough thin reportedly arrived from China in the Kamakura period, and the process was said to be nearly complete by the Muromachi period. The area's abundant water, its water-powered mills, and the cold, clear winters are all said to have suited it well for making fine noodles.
Before you go
- How to read a ticket machineShops that use a ticket machine (shokken-ki) often place their most popular items in a similar spot.
- Foods to look for in summerA guide to foods often seen in Japan around summer — eel on the Day of the Ox, hiyashi chuka, somen, shaved ice, edamame with beer, and hamo — with rough pointers for finding them.
- What staff say, and how to respondCommon set phrases you'll hear at restaurants, with what they mean and what to do when you hear them. You don't need to memorize them — just recognizing them is enough.
Dishes in the same style
- Abura SobaNo broth is poured at all — noodles are tossed in a soy-and-sesame-oil tare pooled at the bottom of the bowl, said to have started at shops in the Musashino area in the late 1950s, with vinegar and chili oil stirred in partway through.
- Abura ZomenPork and somen are fried together with a splash of broth, the oil and stock emulsifying into a silky coat on the noodles. Just how somen took root in wheat-free Amami isn't clear, but the dish is a fixture whenever people gather, not least for the August Dance festival.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Nara
- Amago no KanroniRiver trout, called the queen of the mountain stream, first grilled plain and then simmered in roasted tea before being finished sweet and savory in soy sauce and mirin — a dish of the Yoshino and Uda districts. The fish is said to have little of a river-fish's usual edge, and the dish is remembered as a mother's home cooking.
- Asuka NabeA hot pot from Asuka Village of chicken and seasonal vegetables simmered in milk and dashi. It is said to trace to a dairy product brought from Tang China in the Asuka period and later reworked by monks who simmered their chickens in milk, taking its present form around the early Showa era.
- Ayu ZushiA whole sweetfish pressed onto vinegared rice, made along the Yoshino River. Sweetfish, raised on river-stone algae, are called kogyo, 'fragrant fish,' and the sushi is said to have become known in part because a sushi shop featured in a kabuki play actually existed in Nara.
- DengaraA sweet from Higashiyoshino and Kawakami villages: bean-paste mochi steamed inside magnolia leaves. It is made for Boys' Day, wishing a son success and safe growth, and because each leaf on a single branch is wrapped around its own mochi, the finished cluster hangs like a bunch of fruit.
- Ei no NikogoriRed stingray simmered sweet and savory in soy sauce and sugar, a Nara dish. Its own gelatin dissolves into the cooking liquid and sets into a jelly once cooled, giving the dish its name, nikogori. It is said to have been eaten together with noppei at Kasuga Shrine's Wakamiya festival.
- Hangesho MochiA Nara Basin mochi pounded from cracked wheat and glutinous rice around hangesho, the eleventh day after the summer solstice. It is made at the point when the wheat harvest and rice planting both wind down, and is also called sanaburi mochi for the rite that sends off the rice-field deity.