Rice dishes ── Sushi
Totsukawa Sanma Zushi
Totsukawa sanma zushi — vinegared Pacific saury pressed onto sushi rice, or salt-fermented for New Year
A Pacific saury sushi from Totsukawa Village that splits into two styles even within the village: the north salt-cures and ferments the fish with rice into a nare-zushi, while the south cures it in vinegar and presses it onto sushi rice. It is said to use lean saury that has swum south through the Kumano Sea.
- Origin: Nara Totsukawa
- About 420 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
A fermented sushi made from salted Pacific saury and vinegared rice. The northern and southern parts of the village make it differently, one fermented over a long period and the other pressed with vinegar, but both share the clean flavor distinctive of the lean saury used.
How it's made
In the north, salted saury with the salt rinsed off is layered with rice cooked with salt and sake in a barrel, then water and salt are added and it is left to ferment for a long stretch. In the south, salted saury is cured in seasoned vinegar and placed atop hand-formed vinegared rice, then wrapped in plastic wrap and left a day or two to let the flavors meld before eating.
Why it took this shape
Fermented sushi was originally a method for preserving fish over long periods, and the name is said to come from the way the fish "matures" or "ripens" as fermentation progresses. By the Muromachi period, the fermentation time had reportedly been shortened enough that the rice was eaten along with the fish. The lean saury that migrate south to the Kumano Sea from late autumn through early summer are said to suit this kind of preserved food well, and many households reportedly cured the fish ahead of the New Year, taking it out on New Year's Eve.
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
- Sanma-zushiA rod-pressed sushi from Kumano, Mie, made by butterflying saury along the back and curing it in citrus vinegar. Said to trace to a shrine ritual for children's growth, and made widely along the Kii Peninsula coast.
- Ayu ZushiA whole sweetfish pressed onto vinegared rice, made along the Yoshino River. Sweetfish, raised on river-stone algae, are called kogyo, 'fragrant fish,' and the sushi is said to have become known in part because a sushi shop featured in a kabuki play actually existed in Nara.
Also from Nara
- Amago no KanroniRiver trout, called the queen of the mountain stream, first grilled plain and then simmered in roasted tea before being finished sweet and savory in soy sauce and mirin — a dish of the Yoshino and Uda districts. The fish is said to have little of a river-fish's usual edge, and the dish is remembered as a mother's home cooking.
- Asuka NabeA hot pot from Asuka Village of chicken and seasonal vegetables simmered in milk and dashi. It is said to trace to a dairy product brought from Tang China in the Asuka period and later reworked by monks who simmered their chickens in milk, taking its present form around the early Showa era.
- DengaraA sweet from Higashiyoshino and Kawakami villages: bean-paste mochi steamed inside magnolia leaves. It is made for Boys' Day, wishing a son success and safe growth, and because each leaf on a single branch is wrapped around its own mochi, the finished cluster hangs like a bunch of fruit.
- Ei no NikogoriRed stingray simmered sweet and savory in soy sauce and sugar, a Nara dish. Its own gelatin dissolves into the cooking liquid and sets into a jelly once cooled, giving the dish its name, nikogori. It is said to have been eaten together with noppei at Kasuga Shrine's Wakamiya festival.
- Hangesho MochiA Nara Basin mochi pounded from cracked wheat and glutinous rice around hangesho, the eleventh day after the summer solstice. It is made at the point when the wheat harvest and rice planting both wind down, and is also called sanaburi mochi for the rite that sends off the rice-field deity.