Rice dishes
Someii
Someii — steamed rice dyed yellow with gardenia seed, pressed thin and dried
Steamed sticky rice is dyed yellow with gardenia seed, mashed, and pressed thin into a portable travel food. Sold at teahouses along the old Tokaido in present-day Fujieda since the Warring States era, it's said to have earned a reputation for easing travelers' tired legs.
- Origin: Shizuoka Fujieda
- About 160 km southwest of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Someii is a portable food made by dyeing steamed sweet rice yellow with gardenia fruit, mashing it, and shaping it into thin ovals that are then dried. It is said to have been sold at teahouses in Seto, on the old Tokaido road in what is now Fujieda, as a road-side specialty since the Warring States period. Dried gardenia fruit was believed to have anti-inflammatory, fever-reducing, and diuretic properties, and was used both as medicine and as a dye.
How it's made
The gardenia fruit is peeled, crushed, and soaked in water for about half a day to make a yellow dye. Pre-soaked sweet rice is put in a rice cooker with the dye diluted in plain water, then cooked and left to steam for ten to fifteen minutes. It was once shaped thin and dried as a travel food, but today it is more often reshaped into a rice ball that can be eaten right away.
Why it took this shape
Seto sat near a post town on the old Tokaido road, and the dish is said to have been popular with travelers as something that eased tired legs on the journey. It reportedly appears in Jippensha Ikku's 'Tokaidochu Hizakurige,' suggesting it was once a widely known specialty, though over time it became a dish made only in a few households. About sixty years ago, a bento maker in Fujieda is said to have worked with the local chamber of commerce to revive it, reshaping it as a rice ball.
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 Shizuoka
- Abekawa MochiFresh-pounded rice cake is dusted in soybean flour mixed with sugar. Named for the Abe River, it's said to have been famous among Tokaido travelers as a teahouse specialty and to appear in the travel novel Tokaidochu Hizakurige.
- BokumeshiSteamed eel and shaved burdock are simmered together and folded into freshly cooked rice. Its name is said to trace to oversized eels unfit for sale, used in staff meals at eel farms along the Oi River — a mixed rice dish of the region.
- Fuji KinkaBred by Shizuoka Prefecture by crossing its own Duroc line, Fujirock, with Jinhua, a rare breed from China's Zhejiang province — found only in Shizuoka. Said to combine Jinhua's tenderness with Fujirock's marbling.
- Fujieda Asa RamenA town that eats ramen at breakfast — often a hot bowl followed by a cold one.
- Fujinomiya YakisobaIt grew up as a postwar snack at Fujinomiya's candy shops and okonomiyaki stalls. Its identity rests on three local staples: chewy steamed noodles, pork-lard cracklings called nikukasu, and a sardine-powder topping called dashiko.
- GawaRaw bonito is minced and mixed into a chilled miso broth with cucumber, pickled plum, and shiso. Its name is said to come from the "gawa-gawa" sound of stirring miso into ice water aboard a fishing boat — originally a summer meal made at sea.