Rice dishes
Tororo Gohan
Tororo gohan — grated mountain yam over rice, eaten to settle the stomach
Grated mountain yam thinned with dashi and poured over rice, a Tanba-Sasayama dish said to aid digestion. A custom survives of eating it on January 2nd to rest the stomach after New Year's feasting, and the grated yam is sometimes worked into soba dough or okonomiyaki batter too.
- Origin: Hyogo Tamba Sasayama
- About 420 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Grated mountain yam thinned with stock is poured over freshly cooked rice. The yam grown in Tamba Sasayama is especially dense in texture and notably sticky, giving the dish its smooth mouthfeel alongside a distinctive stickiness.
How it's made
Mountain yam is grated and thinned with stock made from dried sardines or bonito flakes, then poured over rice. The grated yam is also worked into buckwheat noodle dough or mixed into savory pancake batter in various local adaptations.
Why it took this shape
Mountain yam is believed to aid digestion, and it is said to have long been eaten on January 2 to soothe stomachs tired from New Year feasting. The climate of the Tamba Sasayama area, combined with long-running variety improvement, is said to give the local yam its unusually strong stickiness. Eating grated yam around New Year is a custom also found in other parts of Japan.
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 Hyogo
- AkashiyakiOctopus folded into a batter of wheat flour, jin-ko starch, egg, and dashi, cooked and dipped in a warm broth — Akashi's own take on the round batter-and-octopus dish, distinguished from takoyaki by that broth in place of sauce.
- Ako saltA salt tied to Japan's earliest full-scale commercial saltfields, using the irihama tidal-field method perfected in the Edo period. Controlling seawater with channels and embankments let work continue regardless of the tide, and the method is said to have remained Japan's main salt-making approach for some 300 years.
- Awaji BeefPure Tajima-line cattle raised on Awaji Island, a brand producers founded in 1986 — selected for balance between lean and fat rather than marbling volume, with a small annual output.
- Banshu RamenA distinctly sweet soy broth, said to have taken root among the town's textile-mill workers.
- Banshu Tenobe SomenA document held at Ikaruga-ji temple in Taishi records the word 'saumen' in an entry dated 1418, the oldest known reference to somen in Hyogo. In the Edo period the Ryuno domain formally licensed and encouraged the trade, built on locally grown wheat, the clear Ibo River, and salt from Ako.