Rice dishes
Gonjuu
Gonjuu — pork and fried-tofu rice balls for festival mikoshi bearers
Pork belly and fried tofu simmered sweet and savory are mixed with bonito flakes into rice and shaped into onigiri — handed out to the young men carrying the mikoshi at Tateyama's Yawatanmachi festival, the thoroughly cooked filling also said to guard against food poisoning in the late-summer heat.
- Origin: Chiba Tateyama
- About 80 km south of Tokyo
What it's made of
This rice ball mixes sweet-and-savory simmered pork belly and fried tofu into rice, a dish handed down in Tateyama. The rice crumbles softly in the mouth as the rich flavor of the pork and the sweetness of the fried tofu soak through it, and it is easy to eat one-handed. It has long been served to the young men who carry the portable shrine at the autumn festival, prized as a hearty, energizing food and also eaten as everyday fare.
How it's made
Pork belly and fried tofu are simmered sweet and savory in soy sauce and sugar, then mixed into freshly cooked rice. The custom of shaping it into rice balls so the shrine bearers could eat with one hand continues today. Because the ingredients are thoroughly simmered before mixing, the rice stays dry rather than sticky, holds its shape well for carrying, and keeps its flavor even after some time has passed.
Why it took this shape
It is said to trace back to people of the old Awa domain who ate it before setting out in the tenth lunar month to pray for safe travel to Izumo. It later came to be served to the young men carrying the shrine at the autumn festival, and the one-handed rice-ball shape is said to have taken root from that use. Cooking the ingredients thoroughly before mixing them in is also a reasonable precaution against spoilage during a festival held in the lingering heat of early autumn.
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.
- Station food and ekiben (station bento)Where and when to find ekiben (station bento) before it sells out, etiquette for eating on board, how standing soba and udon stalls work, and where to find souvenirs sold inside the station.
- Soraben and airport diningA guide to what soraben means and how it differs from ekiben, whether to buy before or after security, etiquette for eating on board, airport restaurants, and things to check before buying food souvenirs to take home.
Dishes in the same style
- Aburafu DonDeep-fried wheat gluten, shaped into a log, is simmered in a sweet-savory broth and set with egg over rice, katsudon-style — a Tome City bowl said to trace to a tofu shop's shelf-stable gluten product, later turned into a bowl dish by a local innkeeper.
- Aburi-zushiNigiri with just its surface flash-seared by torch or hot iron. Unlike Edomae's shigoto curing for keeping, the searing here is done purely for the change in aroma and fat it brings — a relatively recent way of eating sushi.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Chiba
- Arirang RamenA soy ramen said to have started at a single restaurant on a mountain pass in Chiba's Nagara. Named, it's said, for the legendary Arirang Pass of Korean folklore, its soy broth carries the sweetness of onion and pork, layered with house-made chili oil and grated garlic for depth and heat.
- Barappa ManjuFreshly milled wheat dough is wrapped around red bean paste and steamed on a leaf of catbrier, called barappa locally — a bun said to be made in Chiba's Hokuso area when people gathered for summer festivals or Obon, each bringing ingredients to share.
- Iwashi no Unohana-zukeSalt-and-vinegar-cured sardines are packed into sweet-vinegared tofu lees with carrot and ginger — the pale lees are likened to unohana blossoms in the name, and are also said to keep the fish from breaking apart or oxidizing; eaten at New Year's and as an everyday pantry food.
- Rakkasei MisoPeanuts too small or misshapen to sell are stirred into miso and sugar and toasted into a pantry relish — said to have started as a way for farm households to use up peanuts the market wouldn't take, in leaner years.
- SumitsukareDaikon and carrot, coarsely grated with a rough-toothed oni-oroshi grater, are simmered with leftover setsubun soybeans and sake lees — said to have traveled from Tochigi into Chiba's Higashikatsushika area, offered to the local inari shrine on the year's first Day of the Horse before being eaten. Ibaraki and Saitama carry dishes of the same name.
- Yude RakkaseiFreshly dug peanuts, still in their shells, are boiled whole in salted water — a taste unique to the growing region, since raw peanuts start hardening the moment they're pulled from the ground and need to be boiled almost immediately.