Noodles ── Soba
Kamo Nanban
Kamo nanban — hot soba topped with duck meat and scallion
Kake soba topped with duck meat and scallion. The going account credits Sasaya, a soba shop at Bakurocho in Edo, with first putting it on the menu during the Bunka era (1804–18). "Nanban" is said to derive from an Edo-era term for southerners, reputed to favor scallion in their cooking.
Lineage
What it's made of
It is kake soba topped with duck meat and grilled scallion. The duck's fat is said to melt into the broth, giving the bowl real richness. Chicken was once common in its place, but as farmed duck has grown easier to source, more shops are said to be using duck itself.
How it's made
The kake soba broth draws on the duck's own fat, finished with scallion given a light char. Toward the end of the Edo period, domestic duck or goose is said to have stood in for wild mallard, suggesting the dish adapted to whatever fowl was on hand at the time — a flexible kind of topping from the start.
Why it took this shape
The dish's first commercial appearance is credited, by the going account, to Sasaya, a soba shop at the Bakurocho bridgehead in Edo, during the Bunka era. "Nanban," a term with roots in an old Chinese slur, came in the Edo period to mean southerners or the Portuguese, and because they were said to favor scallion, dishes built around it came to carry the name nanban.
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Dishes in the same style
- 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.
- Cha SobaA kawari-soba made by kneading powdered green tea, often matcha, into the buckwheat dough. It takes on a faint green tint along with tea's own aroma. It is said to be one of the playful noodle variations devised during the Bunka-Bunsei era (1804–30), alongside yuzu-flavored soba.