Rice dishes ── Sushi
Sake no Iizushi
Sake no iizushi — salted salmon and rice fermented together with koji
Vinegar-cured salted salmon, bamboo shoots and glutinous rice are layered with bamboo leaves under a weight and left to ferment for days — a Tsugaru preserve born of snowbound winters, its red and white colors read as auspicious.
- Origin: Aomori
- About 550 km north of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A fermented dish layering vinegar-cured salted salmon, pickled bamboo shoots and softly cooked glutinous rice, wrapped under bamboo leaves and pressed under a weight to cure for several days. The result carries a rich flavor built from the rice's sweetness meeting the tang of lactic fermentation; the salmon's red against the rice's white is said to evoke the auspicious red-and-white pairing.
How it's made
Vinegar-cured salted salmon, pickled bamboo shoots and glutinous rice are layered, topped with rice and covered with bamboo leaves like a lid, then pressed under a weight and left to cure for several days. Older versions skipped the vinegar, relying instead on koji and rice fermenting slowly in a cool spot, with the bamboo leaves also said to help preserve it. Warmer winters in recent years have made that slow, cold fermentation harder to manage, so vinegar has become the more common route, it is said.
Why it took this shape
In the Tsugaru region, shut in by snow through winter, people are said to have developed ways of harvesting as much as possible from crops and seafood in season and preserving it by drying or salting. This iizushi, which harnesses the fermenting power of glutinous rice, is one such technique, and because salmon itself was precious, it is said to have been a special treat only certain households could afford to make.
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 Aomori
- BekomochiColored strips of glutinous and non-glutinous rice-flour dough are bundled and steamed so each slice reveals a pattern — a Boys' Day treat from rice-poor Shimokita, its designs elaborated around Oma town.
- HittsumiHand-torn pieces of kneaded wheat dough are simmered in a chicken-and-soy broth with carrot and burdock — a dish from the old Nanbu domain spanning southeastern Aomori and northern Iwate, once a rice substitute in lean years.
- KakkeThin buckwheat dough is cut into triangles, simmered with daikon and tofu, and dipped in garlic miso — said to have begun when the Nanbu domain banned fine-cut soba, leaving people to eat the offcuts instead.
- Kujira JiruSalted whale blubber is parboiled to render off excess fat, then simmered in a big pot with daikon, carrot and potato — a New Year dish from around Hachinohe's old whaling grounds, said to deepen in flavor over several days.
- Mame ShitogiMashed boiled green soybeans are kneaded with rice flour and sugar into a log and sliced — a Nanbu-region sweet that stretched scarce rice with beans, once offered to the mountain and harvest gods.
- Aomori ShamorockSaid to be developed by Aomori's livestock experiment station over roughly two decades of research from a shamo and Barred Plymouth Rock cross; reportedly reared about 100 days for cockerels and 120 for hens, 50–60 days longer than a standard broiler.