Noodles ── Soba
Nihachi Soba
Nihachi soba — soba noodles mixed at a roughly 8:2 ratio of buckwheat to wheat flour
A name said to denote either a roughly 8:2 ratio of buckwheat to wheat flour, or simply "Edo-style soba" more broadly. It is said to have entered soba's written history in the Kyoho era, though accounts differ on whether the name comes from the blend ratio or from an old noodle price, and no settled answer exists.
Lineage
What it's made of
The blend is said to run roughly eight parts buckwheat flour to two parts wheat flour. The wheat's gluten binds the dough, making it easier to handle and less prone to breaking than a binder-free noodle. This balance of a smooth bite against buckwheat's aroma is said to have made it the standard listing on a soba shop's menu.
How it's made
Buckwheat and wheat flour are combined at roughly an 8-to-2 ratio, worked with water, rolled out, and cut fine. The binder is said to make the dough easier to hold together than a 100%-buckwheat one. Even so, the ratio is counted two different ways — uchi-ni, folding the two parts of wheat flour into the eight of buckwheat, or soto-ni, adding two parts wheat flour on top of a full ten of buckwheat — so the same name nihachi can arrive at the noodle by two different arithmetics.
Why it took this shape
The origin of the name nihachi is said to have been debated since the Edo period. One account ties it to a price theory: soba once cost sixteen mon a bowl in the late Edo period, and two-times-eight makes sixteen in the multiplication tables children learned. Another holds it simply names the blend ratio. The timing is against the price theory, though — in the Kyoho era, soba is said to have cost only seven or eight mon — and the ratio theory is said to have only taken hold once soba's price passed sixteen mon, in the Keio era.
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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.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Known for it here
- Known for it here: Tokyo, Chiyoda (Kanda)
The neighborhood is home to the founding shop of the Yabu lineage, one of Edo's three great soba houses, open since 1880 and said to have kept an 8:2 ratio as tradition.
- Known for it here: Tokyo, Minato (Toranomon)
The area holds a shop carrying the Sunaba lineage's name since its 1872 founding, part of the same Edo-style soba tradition as nihachi.
Contrast
- HikigurumiSoba flour milled from the whole buckwheat grain — husk and all — without separating it into first-flour, second-flour, and so on by stage. Because it grinds in flour close to the husk, the color runs dark and the aroma comes through strong, sitting at the opposite end of the spectrum from sarashina flour.
- Juwari SobaSoba made from buckwheat flour and water alone, with no wheat flour or other binder added. Also called kikouchi-soba, the dough is fragile and prone to breaking, which demands real skill from the maker, but it is said to let buckwheat's own aroma and flavor come through undiluted.