Rice dishes
Kuromame Okowa
Kuromame okowa — sticky rice steamed with black soybeans
Sticky rice steamed with black soybeans, also called "mitama" in the east of the prefecture — chosen over red-bean rice, said to evoke fire, for funerals and memorial services, offered at the altar or handed out as a parting gift.
- Origin: Toyama Uozu
- About 250 km northwest of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Glutinous rice steamed with dark, glossy black soybeans folded through it. The rice turns plump and pleasantly chewy, while the beans keep a soft, mealy bite with a faint sweetness. Dark grains scattered through the white rice give the dish a quiet richness to look at, and each mouthful is said to alternate between the beans' flavor and the rice's own sweetness — a subdued dish suited to solemn occasions.
How it's made
The black soybeans are simmered until just firm, then sugar and salt are stirred in for a final boil. Glutinous rice is spread over a damp cloth in a steamer and steamed in stages, sprinkled with water between rounds. While the rice is still hot, the drained beans are folded in — said to be the step that matters most. Fewer sprinklings leave the rice firmer, more leave it softer, adjusted to taste.
Why it took this shape
A custom is said to have taken hold locally of serving red-bean rice for New Year and other celebrations, and black-bean rice for other occasions. Today it appears mostly at funerals and memorial services, offered before the family altar or handed out as a return gift. This habit of pairing red with joy and black with mourning is said to have made the darker, quieter version a fixture of the funeral table.
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 Toyama
- Bai no NimonoWhelks from the deep waters of Toyama Bay are simmered whole in their shells — said to appear at celebrations thanks to a play on words suggesting doubled good fortune, with smaller whelks simmered and larger ones eaten raw.
- BekkoMelted agar is seasoned with soy sauce and mirin, then set with egg trailed in like threads — its amber color flecked with egg said to resemble a tortoiseshell hair ornament, giving the dish its name; in the west of the prefecture it goes by "yubeshi" instead.
- BurishabuThin slices of yellowtail are swished briefly through kelp broth, said to cook only the surface while leaving the center rare — versions using Himi's branded winter yellowtail are considered a particularly luxurious cold-weather treat.
- Genge no MisoshiruEelpout, a deep-sea fish covered in a gelatinous layer, is cut into chunks and simmered into a miso soup — long treated as an unwanted bycatch of sweet shrimp fishing, its flavor has since been reappraised and spread beyond the fishing villages that first ate it.
- Himi UdonA hand-stretched udon developed in Himi, Toyama, in the mid-Edo period by adapting somen-making techniques from Wajima. It was once presented to the Kaga domain as tribute.
- Hoonko RyoriA catch-all term for the dishes served at houonko, the memorial gathering held on the death anniversary of Jodo Shinshu's founder — the season's better vegetables and wild greens are said to be set aside for it apart from everyday use, with the devout Gokayama area of Nanto known for hearty stews of dried greens and local tofu.