Daikon-zushi

Thin-sliced daikon radish and rehydrated dried herring are layered with carrot, yuzu peel, and red chili. A sweet malt made from rice and rice koji is worked through the layers as they're packed — daikon's moisture and herring's fat mingling with the koji's sweetness into something lighter on the teeth and milder in acidity than kaburazushi, with a faint green freshness from the radish itself. Kaga households traditionally prepare it through the New Year season, and a cut cross-section shows herring's silver flesh layered against translucent white daikon.

The daikon is salted first and left five or six days to draw out its water, while the dried herring is soaked overnight in rice-rinsing water to soften and carefully deboned. Once the malt is built, daikon, herring, and carrot are layered in turn with koji tucked between them, packed into a barrel under a weight, and left to ferment seven to ten days as lactic fermentation works through the layers.

Kitamae-bune trading ships ran the Sea of Japan from the Edo period into the Meiji era, carrying dried herring from Ezo down to the ports of Noto and Kaga. Herring warehouses built up around those ports, and through them a once-costly fish reached ordinary households — a shift said to have pushed this pickled sushi into everyday eating. Pairing it with daikon, a vegetable that itself keeps well, is also said to have made it a way to stretch a scarce winter protein further.