Raw
Hizu Namasu
Hizu namasu — vinegared salmon head cartilage with daikon and carrot
Thin 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.
- Origin: Iwate Miyako
- About 480 km northeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
A New Year dish from Sanriku's coast and central Iwate: hizu, the cartilage from a salmon's head, sliced thin, cured in vinegar, and tossed with a daikon-and-carrot namasu salad. Only a small amount can be taken from a single fish, making it a delicacy prized for its crunchy bite. Coastal versions sometimes top it with salmon roe for a more festive finish, it is said.
How it's made
Only the cartilage from a fresh salmon's head is sliced thin, salted briefly, cured in vinegar, and combined with a daikon-and-carrot namasu. Heads from cured or salted salmon can also be used once desalted, it is said. What remains of the head after the cartilage is removed is not wasted either, simmered with soybeans and kelp or turned into namasu or a rough fish soup.
Why it took this shape
Iwate is said to rank among the top prefectures on Honshu for autumn salmon landings, long valued locally as a key source of income under the Nanbu domain. Salmon is described as a fish where everything but the gills can be eaten, and in a culture built around buying a whole fish and putting every part to use, this namasu is thought to have endured as a dish that makes full use of the sea's bounty.
Before you go
- 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.
- Food for Hinamatsuri and Tango no SekkuA guide to the chirashi sushi and hina-arare eaten at Hinamatsuri, and the kashiwa mochi and chimaki eaten at Tango no Sekku — festivals wishing for children's healthy growth.
Dishes in the same style
- Akagarei no KomaburiRoe-bearing red flounder is sliced into sashimi and tossed with its own boiled, crumbled eggs, a dish from around the Amijiro area of Iwami Town. Said to have descended from a similar dish made with crucian carp roe, it pairs rich eggs with mild, fatty winter flounder for festivals and New Year's.
- Amagi no KawatakeA rare wild freshwater algae, found only in the Kogane River in Asakura, is dressed with sweet or three-flavor vinegar — said to have once been presented to the shogun, and now conservation efforts continue as it's listed as endangered.
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.
- 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.
- Iwachu ButaDesignated brand-pork No. 1 by the Tokyo Meat Market's branded-pork association — the first pork in Japan to receive such certification. Raised on an Iwate farm under SPF hygiene standards.