Rice dishes ── Sushi
Mosso-zushi
Mosso-zushi — pressed sushi molded in a square wooden box, topped with white fish
Vinegared rice mixed with simmered carrot, burdock, and dried shiitake is packed into a square wooden mold called mosso and pressed firm — a festival sushi from Nakatsu and Usa said to have used the mold to portion out rice equally in leaner times, finished with a slice of white fish.
- Origin: Oita Nakatsu
- About 820 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Mosso-zushi, handed down in Nakatsu and Usa, is a pressed sushi made using a square wooden mold about 15 centimeters on each side, called a "mosso." Vinegared rice, mixed with carrot, burdock, dried shiitake, and fried tofu simmered together, is packed into the mold and topped with white fish and young sansho leaves. Pressed firmly in the mold, the rice carries the concentrated flavor of the simmered ingredients throughout.
How it's made
Rice is combined with finely chopped carrot, burdock, dried shiitake, and fried tofu, all simmered together in dashi. This mixture is folded into vinegared rice, packed into the mosso mold, and pressed down with a lid; tradition reportedly called for a strong man to do the pressing. White fish and young sansho leaves finish the dish. At a certain local festival, glutinous rice is sometimes packed into the mold in place of vinegared rice, a version known as "mosso okowa."
Why it took this shape
In an era when rice was extremely precious, the mold is said to have been used to divide it into equal portions so everyone could eat their fair share. The mold itself is said to descend from a round wooden form once used in temples, which took on a square shape as it was passed down in this region. Molds came in several sizes, and larger or smaller ones were reportedly chosen to suit the scale of the occasion. Beyond a treat during the busy farming season, it has long been served as a festival food each spring.
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
- Okata-zushiVinegared rice is mixed with flaked grilled horse mackerel and sweet simmered kidney beans, then shaped into oblong rice balls — a sushi from the Chikunaka district of Oita City said to have begun as a village headman's treat for tenant farmers before the hard labor of the growing season began.
- Aji no MaruzushiA whole horse mackerel, cured in plum vinegar and opened flat, is wrapped around vinegared rice and rolled in red shiso leaf — a celebratory sushi from Saiki, painstaking to prepare, built on the rich mackerel landed from the Bungo Channel.
Also from Oita
- AmimeshiKrill simmered sweet-savory in mirin, soy sauce, and ginger is folded into freshly steamed rice — a dish from the Usa, Nakatsu, and Bungotakada coast, where krill are hauled from the Buzen Sea tideflats each autumn and winter; a favorite of the northern Oita coast.
- Atama RyoriGills, jaw, and innards of a large fish like grouper are quickly parboiled along with the flesh and piled onto a single platter — a dish from inland Taketa, far from the sea, said to have grown from a wish to waste nothing of a rare catch, served with a citrus dipping sauce.
- Ayu UrukaAyu (sweetfish) flesh or innards are minced with salt and left to ferment for about a week — an Oita salted delicacy said to have begun as a way to keep the clean river's seasonal catch; the innards-only version, nigauruka, carries a distinctive bitterness.
- Beppu ReimenThe dish's spread is traced to around 1950, when a cook repatriated from what had been Manchuria began making cold noodles in Beppu. Genso Arirang, founded that same year, is often named as the pioneering shop; the local style pairs a Japanese-style seafood stock with noodles made from buckwheat, wheat, and starch.
- Dango-jiruWheat dough kneaded and stretched into flat ribbons is simmered with root vegetables and shiitake in a barley-miso broth — an everyday Oita dish born of the prefecture's flour-based food culture, where poor rice land pushed wheat to the fore; the ribbons keep a firmer bite than udon.