Sweets
Fukure Gashi
Fukure gashi — baking-soda-leavened black-sugar cake, steamed until it puffs up
Wheat flour, baking soda, and black sugar are mixed and steamed into a cake that puffs up from the soda, earning it the nickname soda-gashi. It took root in Kagoshima against the backdrop of the Satsuma domain's monopoly on Amami and Ryukyu black-sugar production.
- Origin: Kagoshima City, Kagoshima
- About 970 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
This simple steamed cake combines wheat flour, baking soda, and brown sugar, and its nickname, "soda cake," nods to how the baking soda puffs it up as it steams. Fresh from the steamer the crumb is soft and light; as it cools it turns pleasantly chewy, with the flavor of brown sugar lingering underneath. It also goes by names like fukurakan and fukurekan in different areas.
How it's made
Wheat flour and baking soda are combined, then beaten egg, powdered brown sugar, honey, vinegar, and water are mixed in before the batter is poured into a small basket and steamed for about 40 minutes. Some cooks knead mugwort or pumpkin into the batter, or line the steamer with sannin (shell ginger) leaves to let their scent perfume the cake. Steaming it through thoroughly is said to be the key to a properly light, airy texture.
Why it took this shape
Brown sugar is said to have taken deep root in Kagoshima because the Satsuma domain monopolized sugarcane cultivation and brown sugar production in Ryukyu and Amami, accepting the sugar in place of rice as tax and turning it into a major source of revenue through the Edo period. The arrangement placed a harsh burden on islanders, yet it also embedded brown sugar as an everyday sweetener, and confections like this one are said to have spread from there as a taste of home.
Before you go
- How to shop in a depachika (department store food hall)A guide to browsing prepared foods and bento, choosing wagashi as a gift with a good shelf life, sampling etiquette, end-of-day discounts, asking for cold packs and wrapping, and finding your way around a depachika floor.
- At kissaten, cafes, and kanmi-dokoroThe difference between jun-kissa and chain cafes, the morning-set custom, and kanmi-dokoro staples like anmitsu and zenzai.
Dishes in the same style
- Abekawa MochiFresh-pounded rice cake is dusted in soybean flour mixed with sugar. Named for the Abe River, it's said to have been famous among Tokaido travelers as a teahouse specialty and to appear in the travel novel Tokaidochu Hizakurige.
- Iga ManjuSweet bean paste is wrapped in rice flour dough, then coated with dyed sticky rice grains. One account ties the name to the grains' resemblance to a chestnut's spiny husk, and in the western Mikawa region it's said to be offered to Hina dolls at the Doll Festival.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Kagoshima
- Abura ZomenPork and somen are fried together with a splash of broth, the oil and stock emulsifying into a silky coat on the noodles. Just how somen took root in wheat-free Amami isn't clear, but the dish is a fixture whenever people gather, not least for the August Dance festival.
- AkumakiMochi rice steeped in wood-ash lye is wrapped in bamboo sheath and boiled for hours in more lye water — a Boys' Festival sweet said to have fed Saigo Takamori's troops in the field. The lye's alkalinity holds bacteria back, letting it keep for days in Kagoshima's heat and humidity.
- Amami Kokuto-jochuKokuto-jochu permitted to be made only in the Amami Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture. It's said to carry a sweet aroma distinctive to islands where sugarcane cultivation thrives, and around 30 breweries are said to compete on character while observing the liquor tax law's condition that rice koji be used.
- Buta Hone YasaiBone-in pork cut into big chunks is simmered in a large pot with tsuwabuki, daikon, and koshaman taro — an Amami dish essential to New Year's Eve, also called wanfineyasse. It's regarded as a wisdom born of using every part of the island's own black pigs.
- Buta JiruPork simmered with daikon, taro, and other roots in a miso broth, built on Kagoshima's own pork — the prefecture raises more hogs than any other — paired with a barley miso high in koji and correspondingly sweet. A warming bowl for winter, common at home and in school lunches alike.
- Buta MisoBoiled pork is pounded together with miso and sugar into a keeping paste, with peanuts and bonito flakes added in Amami versions. It's said to have grown out of the need to use every part of the one pig a household slaughtered each year, alongside salting and other preserved forms.