Rice dishes ── Sushi
Ayu Narezushi
Ayu narezushi — salted ayu packed with rice and fermented for months
Ayu heading downriver to spawn in autumn, often carrying roe, are salted and stuffed with freshly cooked rice, then packed in a barrel to ferment for about two months — a narezushi of Gifu City said to have been made from fish caught at the Nagara River's cormorant fishery and once presented to the shogunate.
- Origin: Gifu City, Gifu
- About 270 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Salted ayu stuffed with freshly cooked rice and left to ferment in a barrel for about two months, so each bite carries a distinctive sour tang alongside the fish's flesh, mellowed and deepened by the slow cure. Female fish carrying roe are said to add extra richness from the roe itself, rounding the flavor out further.
How it's made
Ayu caught heading downstream in autumn are butterflied, cured in salt for about two months, then desalted before their bellies are packed with freshly cooked rice. Stacked three or four layers deep in a wooden barrel lined with bamboo bark and weighted with a stone, the fish are left to ferment naturally with the help of lactic acid bacteria. Once cured, it's said to keep and be enjoyed year-round.
Why it took this shape
The Nagara River running through Gifu City is said to carry over 1,300 years of history with its cormorant fishing, and the technique of turning the ayu it yields into a fermented food using nothing but salt and rice is said to have been handed down from those same old days. Preserving a river fish with a short season, and stretching it into a precious winter protein source, is said to be what shaped this style of fermentation.
Before you go
- How to read a vertical menuIn shops with strips of handwritten menu items on the wall, the top-right spot is often used for recommendations.
- 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.
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
Dishes in the same style
- 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.
- Aichi HakozushiVinegared rice is packed into a wooden frame, topped with shrimp, eel, shiitake, and egg arranged diagonally, and pressed. Placing toppings on the diagonal so everyone gets a fair share of each is said to be a feature of the Owari and western Mikawa style, made for celebrations.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- NarezushiFish salted and packed with rice for a long lactic fermentation — thought to be the oldest form sushi took. Some eat the rice too, others discard it and eat only the fish, sharply sour and pungent either way.
- Senkokumame no KakimawashiSenkoku beans, a hyacinth bean grown in southern Gifu City, are simmered with chicken and burdock, then folded through cooked rice — called kakimawashi, 'stirred around,' for the way the cooked filling gets mixed in, and traditionally served when relatives gather.
- NezushiSalted trout, daikon, and carrot are mixed with rice seasoned with koji and left to ferment for two to three weeks — a narezushi of the Hida region said to be so essential that, locally, it doesn't feel like New Year without it.
Also from Gifu
- Akadatsu no SubuteThe red-purple leaf stalk of taro, called akadatsu, has its fibers removed and is salt-rubbed before being dressed in a sweetened vinegar — a dish of Yamagata City on land whose lime-poor, thin soil suited taro cultivation, once said to be fed to new mothers to aid recovery.
- Ayu ZosuiAyu, grilled plain until fragrant, is flaked and briefly simmered with dashi and rice into a light porridge — a Gifu river-fish dish said to have begun as a way to use ayu too damaged from fishing to sell whole, often served as the closing course at restaurants specializing in ayu.
- FunamisoCrucian carp, first grilled plain, simmers for hours with rehydrated soybeans, then finishes in soybean miso and coarse sugar — a river-fish dish of the Seino region, where the miso's strong umami is said to soften the fish's characteristic edge, simmered until the flesh falls apart as a winter keeping food.
- Ayu no ShioyakiAyu are salted all over, given a decorative touch of salt on fin and tail, then grilled over charcoal on both sides — a river-fish dish of Gifu, said to draw on fish caught fresh at the 1,300-year-old Nagara River cormorant fishery or at the traditional yana weirs that channel fish into a catch.
- Gohei MochiCrushed rice is skewered and grilled, then glazed with a walnut- or peanut-flecked sauce — a dish of the Tono and Hida areas where soy-based sauce dominates north of the old Nakasendo road and miso-based sauce south of it, traditionally served to celebrate the new rice harvest or to honor a guest.
- ImomochiTaro and rice are cooked together, mashed smooth, shaped and skewered, then grilled over charcoal and dipped in ginger soy sauce — a dish of the Nakatsugawa area said to have begun with combining leftover broken rice from the harvest with sticky taro, or as a way to stretch rice in lean years.