Sweets
Futsu Mochi
Futsu mochi — mugwort mochi filled with sweet bean paste
Pounded mochi is worked through with boiled mugwort and wrapped around sweet bean paste — where much of Japan offers diamond-shaped rice cakes at the Doll Festival, parts of Saga offer this mugwort mochi instead, and it doubles as a snack marking spring's arrival.
- Origin: Saga
- About 910 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Pounded glutinous rice mochi is mixed with mugwort into a confection wrapped around sweet bean paste; futsu is a local word for mugwort, said to have been gathered by hand each spring from around the rice paddies for making at home. It's said to be a confection distinctive to a region counted among the country's leading producers of glutinous rice. It's essentially the same confection widely known elsewhere as mugwort mochi. It comes from a region counted among the country's leading producers of glutinous rice.
How it's made
Glutinous rice is steamed and pounded into mochi. Boiled, ground mugwort is worked in and pounded further, then portioned by hand, stretched, and wrapped around sweet bean paste. The mugwort is boiled in water with a pinch of salt and baking soda, then rinsed in cold water and ground into a paste, said to give the mochi its vivid green color. Mugwort was traditionally gathered by hand into a handleless basket carried into the fields. The mugwort is said to give the mochi its vivid green color.
Why it took this shape
In a region known for rice farming, glutinous rice is also grown widely, and this is said to be one of the local dishes built around it. Made with mugwort picked in spring, it's also said to have been offered for the Doll's Festival and similar occasions, a local alternative where diamond-shaped mochi is more common elsewhere in Japan. It's also said to have been made as an offering for the Boys' Festival and a Buddhist spring celebration, as well as the Doll's Festival.
Before you go
- 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 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.
- Osechi and zoni for the New YearA guide to the meaning behind osechi's tiered boxes, the regional differences in zoni (square vs. round mochi, clear vs. miso broth), and the nanakusa-gayu custom.
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 Saga
- Ara no SugataniA grouper weighing ten kilos or more is simmered whole in a giant pot over the better part of a day — the showpiece of the hospitality dishes women prepare for guests during the Karatsu-kunchi festival, said to have started as a postwar display of one-upmanship.
- FunankoguiCrucian carp, wrapped whole in kelp, simmers for hours with daikon and other roots until even the bones turn soft — a winter protein source from the lean season on the Ariake Sea, and in Kashima, an offering to the god of good fortune at New Year.
- Go DofuSoy milk is set not with nigari but kudzu starch, giving this Arita specialty a softer, glossier bite than ordinary tofu — served with sesame-soy as a side, or with black sugar syrup and soybean flour as a dessert.
- Hoshigaki NamasuJulienned daikon and dried persimmon are tossed with vinegar, yuzu juice, and soy — from Saga's Matsubai district, where curtains of drying persimmons hanging under the eaves mark the fall, and this dish is said to appear alongside New Year's osechi.
- Ika no KakeaeSquid, daikon, and carrot are tossed in a vinegared miso dressing thick with ground sesame — a style of dish found across Japan, but called 'kakeae' in Saga, where fatty mackerel sometimes stands in for squid at autumn festivals.
- Imari GyuJapanese Black fattened within Imari's JA district in Saga — sharing the same Tajima roots as Saga Gyu, but kept as a separate brand after the JA Saga merger of 2007 left Imari's cooperative outside it.