Rice dishes
Mazemeshi
Mazegohan — chicken, burdock, and shiitake simmered sweet-savory and folded into hot rice
Chicken, burdock, and dried shiitake are cut fine, simmered sweet in soy, and folded into freshly cooked rice. At the autumn festival of Rokka Shrine in Kashima, some households are said to use horse meat instead of chicken.
- Origin: Kumamoto Kashima
- About 890 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Chicken, burdock, carrot, dried shiitake and bamboo shoot are finely cut and stir-fried, seasoned with soy sauce and sugar, then mixed into freshly cooked rice. Coastal areas add sea bream or shellfish, and daikon is added generously when it's in season, giving the dish different fillings from region to region and household to household. It's a fixture at local festivals and celebrations.
How it's made
Chicken, burdock, carrot, dried shiitake, bamboo shoot and fried tofu are finely cut and stir-fried, seasoned with soy sauce and sugar. This is mixed into hot, freshly cooked rice. In some areas, tofu is stir-fried until its moisture cooks off and used in place of meat. Because it tastes good cold too, it's also handy shaped into rice balls, tucked into fried tofu pouches, or packed for lunch.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to be a fixture of local festivals and celebrations where people gather, and the custom of serving it to relatives and neighbors at autumn festivals continues today. Using whatever local ingredients were at hand — seafood near the coast, extra daikon at harvest time — is thought to be behind the different combinations of fillings found from one area to the next. At the autumn festival of Rokka Shrine in Kashima town, local horse meat stands in for chicken, one of several local variations said to be passed down.
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 Kumamoto
- Amakusa DaioA large-bodied meat fowl once kept in Amakusa in the Meiji and Taisho eras, said to have died out in the early Showa period before Kumamoto prefecture spent roughly a decade recreating it; reportedly among the biggest jidori breeds, shipped at 120–150 days.
- Gane-ageSweet potato cut into batons is coated in a ginger-sweetened batter and deep-fried. "Gane" is Amakusa dialect for crab, said to describe the shape of the fried strands, and the dish also serves as a vegetarian offering at Buddhist services.
- Tai SomenSomen noodles are simmered in the broth of sea bream head and bones cooked down whole — a celebratory dish said to reflect the influence of nearby Shimabara's somen tradition. In Yamato's Mamihara, a version called "taimen" simmers the whole fish instead.
- Baniku SobaFrom the Aso area of Kumamoto: hot soba topped with horse meat simmered sweet and salty. It's said to carry the history of a region where horse meat took root as a restorative food for the injured and ill.
- ButaaeBoiled octopus and eggplant are stir-fried in a sweet, spicy barley miso — an Amakusa home dish said to have begun as a stand-in for pork, once hard to come by, using the local octopus instead while keeping the old name, "pork mix."