Raw
Mizu Tataki (Tororo)
Mizu tataki — pounded wood nettle stem dressed with miso and soy sauce
The reddish base of the wood nettle "mizu" is pounded and chopped until it turns sticky, then dressed with miso, mirin and soy sauce — called "mizu tororo" when ground fine, an early-summer dish from the streamsides of Iwate's mountain ranges.
- Origin: Iwate
- About 460 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
A dish from the Ou and Kitakami mountain regions made by pounding and chopping the reddish base of the wild plant mizu and seasoning it with miso or soy sauce. Ground further, it becomes what's called mizu-tororo; the water-rich, tender stalk has a distinctive slipperiness paired with a crisp bite, it is said. Harvestable from May through October, the tender stems picked in June are said to be especially good.
How it's made
The skin is peeled from the reddish base of the mizu stalk, which is pounded with a stick and then chopped with a knife until it turns sticky. It is dressed with a mix of miso, mirin, soy sauce and sugar, and topped with chopped nori and scallion. Ground in a mortar, it becomes mizu-tororo, it is said. It is also used broadly in blanched salads, soups, dressed dishes, quick pickles, simmered dishes and stir-fries.
Why it took this shape
The Ou mountains along the Akita border see harsh cold and heavy snow, but the region is rich in mountain bounty, and a food culture built on wild greens in spring and mushrooms in autumn is said to have developed there. Mizu's formal name is uwabamiso, said to derive from growing in the damp, snake-inhabited terrain the name evokes. As a wild plant harvestable over a long season, it is thought to have found a steady place on the everyday table.
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.
- Hizu NamasuThin 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.
- 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.