Rice dishes ── Sushi
Hazushi
Hazushi — sweet bean sushi wrapped in tung tree leaves
Sushi rice mixed with sweet kidney beans, hijiki, and shiitake is individually wrapped in the oily, fragrant leaf of the tung tree — a pressed sushi from Fukui city's Denga and Tannan districts. The leaf keeps rice from sticking and aids preservation, and is said to be a favored gift for Obon and autumn festivals.
- Origin: Fukui
- About 320 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Sushi rice wrapped in the leaf of the tung tree, so unwrapping it releases a cool, oil-tinged fragrance, and the sweetness of candied kidney beans and the chewy bite of hijiki seaweed spread through the vinegared rice. Wrapped in a leaf, it can be eaten without getting the hands sticky, and the leaf's scent seeping into the rice is said to leave an especially refreshing aftertaste.
How it's made
Vinegared rice folded with mild ingredients — sweet simmered kidney beans, hijiki seaweed, dried shiitake, thin fried tofu, carrot — is wrapped one by one, carefully, in tung tree leaves. The leaf's naturally oily surface is said to keep rice grains from sticking and to help the sushi stay fresh longer. Households are said to have once grown their own tung trees in the yard just to have leaves ready in time.
Why it took this shape
The Wakasa region is said to have grown tung trees widely, since the oil pressed from their fruit was a valuable source of income for lamp oil and waterproofing paper umbrellas. The leaf's strong antibacterial quality suited it to keeping food fresh through the hot, humid season, which is said to be why this long-keeping wrapped sushi became the food of choice for entertaining guests during the busy rice-planting season.
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
Also from Fukui
- Atsuage no NitaThick fried tofu, blanched and scored with a cross cut, is simmered sweet-savory in dashi, soy sauce, and mirin with a dash of ginger juice. Fukui leads the country in fried-tofu consumption, and this dish is said to have moved from a Honkoko feast dish into everyday cooking.
- BokkakeThick fried tofu, burdock, and shirataki noodles are simmered in a bonito broth and poured hot, broth and all, over freshly cooked rice — eaten for over a century since the early 1910s. In Katsuyama it is said to take a chazuke-like turn, topped with fish cake and mitsuba.
- ChameshiRoasted soybeans are steeped in hot roasted barley tea, and rice is then cooked in that same tea — a dish from the old post town of Imajo, said to descend from Nara's 'nara-chameshi'. It is said to be indispensable at memorial services, Honkoko, and for daughters visiting home.
- Choju NamasuGround sesame is worked into a paste with miso, thick fried tofu, mustard, and vinegar, then tossed with shredded daikon, carrot, and snap peas — a New Year salad whose name literally wishes long life, also said to appear at memorial services and Honkoko.
- Decchi YokanSweet red bean paste is set with agar, sugar, and a pinch of salt into a thin, water-yokan-like winter confection. It is said to have begun when a young apprentice, home for New Year from a Kyoto shop, stretched a bar of yokan with water to share with neighbors, eaten by the kotatsu.
- Echizen Oroshi SobaA cold soba from Echizen, Fukui, topped with grated daikon and bonito flakes. It is said to originate with a soba maker a local lord brought from Kyoto to promote buckwheat as an emergency food crop.