Rice dishes
Honkosan
Honkosan — the shojin meal served at Jodo Shinshu's autumn memorial gathering
At Honkoko, Jodo Shinshu's biggest annual memorial gathering, participants are served a shojin meal of seasonal vegetables and beans built around one soup and three sides — dishes like gojiru and otsubo layered together into what is said to have become an everyday family taste.
- Origin: Fukui
- About 320 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A one-soup, three-dish spread built around seasonal vegetables, tofu, and fried tofu, so a gentle sweet-savory simmer meets the quiet richness of beans in a plain, homely flavor. Nothing about it is flashy, but since it's cooked in a big pot for everyone who gathers, the taste is said to vary noticeably from one household to the next. It's said to turn up on everyday tables too, as a taste of home.
How it's made
Several meat-free dishes go onto one plate in small portions — simmered fried tofu and vegetables, wheat gluten dressed with hot mustard, a soy-paste soup, a vinegared salad, a sweet red-bean and taro dish — pulled together from whatever local women brought in from the season's harvest. There's said to be no fixed recipe, only variations by household and district. Red beans, said to have been the founder's favorite food, are said to appear in some form without fail.
Why it took this shape
In a region devoted to Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, the custom of feeding the whole community a meat-free meal is said to have taken root around the autumn-to-new-year memorial for the sect's founder. Making full use of local vegetables and beans without waste is said to be what shaped this plain yet nourishing spread of one soup and three dishes still served today.
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
Derived style
- Choju NamasuGround sesame is worked into a paste with miso, thick fried tofu, mustard, and vinegar, then tossed with shredded daikon, carrot, and snap peas — a New Year salad whose name literally wishes long life, also said to appear at memorial services and Honkoko.
- GonzaSoftened soybeans pounded flat and dried — called 'uchimame' — are simmered plainly with shredded daikon in soy sauce. Passed down in eastern Fukui city, it is said to have been served at men's gatherings during Honkoko and as a snack when neighbors shared a bath.
- GojiruSoybeans soaked overnight are ground into a paste called 'go' and stirred into miso soup — said to be one of the shojin dishes served at the Honkoko gathering. The soft, nutty richness makes it a nourishing winter staple in Fukui homes.
- OtsuboAzuki beans simmered soft with sugar are combined with lightly salted taro — a shojin dish for Honkoko, traditionally served in the small bowl also called 'otsubo'. It is said to be indispensable owing to a tradition that the priest Shinran was fond of azuki beans.
- Atsuage no NitaThick fried tofu, blanched and scored with a cross cut, is simmered sweet-savory in dashi, soy sauce, and mirin with a dash of ginger juice. Fukui leads the country in fried-tofu consumption, and this dish is said to have moved from a Honkoko feast dish into everyday cooking.
- Fu no Karashi-aeRehydrated wheat gluten and salted cucumber are dressed with local mustard, miso, and vinegar — a shojin dish for Honkoko. Fukui's mustard is milled whole without degreasing for a sharper aroma, and gluten from Echizen, tinted red in part, adds color, it is said.
- Satoimo no KoroniTaro, its skin merely scraped rather than peeled, is simmered without pre-boiling in soy sauce and mirin until the surface turns glossy and thick — a dish from the snowy Okuetsu region known for its taro, said to be served as a shojin dish at Honkoko and celebrations.
Also from Fukui
- BokkakeThick fried tofu, burdock, and shirataki noodles are simmered in a bonito broth and poured hot, broth and all, over freshly cooked rice — eaten for over a century since the early 1910s. In Katsuyama it is said to take a chazuke-like turn, topped with fish cake and mitsuba.
- Decchi YokanSweet red bean paste is set with agar, sugar, and a pinch of salt into a thin, water-yokan-like winter confection. It is said to have begun when a young apprentice, home for New Year from a Kyoto shop, stretched a bar of yokan with water to share with neighbors, eaten by the kotatsu.
- Echizen Oroshi SobaA cold soba from Echizen, Fukui, topped with grated daikon and bonito flakes. It is said to originate with a soba maker a local lord brought from Kyoto to promote buckwheat as an emergency food crop.