Rice dishes
Mame Gohan
Mame Gohan — spring peas cooked into rice at the peak of harvest
As rice grew scarce each spring, plump usui peas at the peak of their harvest were cooked into rice to stretch it further, a dish from the pea-growing districts of central Wakayama. Seasoned with nothing but salt, it lets the peas' sweetness and flavor carry the dish.
- Origin: Wakayama
- About 470 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Mame gohan is a rice dish cooked together with "usui endo," a variety of green pea for which Wakayama is one of Japan's leading producers. The large, starchy peas carry a strong natural sweetness, coming through clearly even with nothing but salt for seasoning. The bright green of the peas against the white rice makes for an attractive spring dish that is also a favorite among children.
How it's made
As the peas cook together with the rice, their vivid green gradually turns a muted brown, though their flavor infuses the rice throughout. To keep the peas a brighter green, cooks are said to add them only in the last five minutes or so of cooking. The seasoning stays simple — salt alone — so the natural sweetness and starchy texture of the usui endo pea comes through in every bite.
Why it took this shape
Wakayama is one of Japan's leading pea-growing prefectures, with many varieties cultivated across towns including Inami, Hidakagawa, and Minabe. The usui endo pea is said to have reached Wakayama by way of Osaka after being introduced from the United States in the Meiji era, and the prefecture's mild climate reportedly encouraged more growers to take it up. Because rice supplies traditionally ran low in spring just as peas came into season, adding a generous amount of peas to stretch the rice is said to have been the origin of mame gohan.
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
Contrast
- Shouga MeshiMild new ginger, grown in the sandy soil along the Kinokawa river, is cooked straight into the rice pot in this Wakayama City dish. Its bright scent whets the appetite and goes down easily even in summer, and it's also been used as a folk remedy for colds and poor circulation.
- Gonpachi no Abura ItameGonbachi, formally known as itadori knotweed, is blanched, peeled, and quickly stir-fried in oil for this spring dish. Thick, well-grown stalks that snap with a crisp pop are prized for a crunchy bite and a faint sourness.
Also from Wakayama
- BouriA whole, unpeeled parent taro is simmered over two days for this New Year's dish from the Ayukawa area of Tanabe City's Ото̄ district. One account holds that villagers gave up pounding mochi for six hundred years to atone for once turning away a fleeing prince, eating this in its place.
- Goma ToufuRaw sesame is skinned, ground, and worked with mountain water and Yoshino arrowroot into a simmered block of shojin cuisine. Said to have supplied protein for monks who abstained from meat and fish, it's now a familiar Koyasan souvenir and a fixture on Japanese menus.
- Hatagonbo ZushiA stout, round burdock called hatagonbo, grown on the steep red-clay slopes of Hashimoto City's Nishihata district, is sliced into rounds, hollowed at the center, and packed with vinegared rice. Cultivation had nearly died out until a local cooperative revived it around 2013, roughly seventy years on.
- Igami no NitsukeIgami — what southern Wakayama calls the parrotfish — is simmered whole in a sweet-salty broth. Feeding on seaweed among winter rocks leaves it free of any off-flavor, and around Tanabe it's said to be served head-to-tail in place of sea bream for New Year's.
- Inoko MochiNon-glutinous and sticky rice are cooked with taro, mashed, and shaped into balls coated with lightly salted sweet red bean paste. Offered to the harvest god on the Day of the Boar in the old tenth lunar month, it's also made for autumn festivals in parts of southern Wakayama.