Sweets
Hoba Maki
Hoba maki — sweet rice dumplings steamed in magnolia leaves
Rice-flour dough kneaded with hot water wraps sweet bean paste, then steams inside a magnolia leaf — a Kiso festival mochi. With no oak trees in the mountains, magnolia stood in, and locals say the leaf's scent settles in best the next day.
- Origin: Nagano
- About 190 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Rice flour is kneaded with hot water to an earlobe-soft dough, wrapped around sweet red bean paste, and folded into a magnolia leaf before steaming. Fresh off the steamer it's soft and chewy, and the leaf's green scent is said to seep further into the rice cake the longer it sits. In the Kiso region, people say it tastes best the day after steaming, once the fragrance has fully settled in -- untying the iris-grass or straw cord is said to release a burst of mountain air.
How it's made
Hot water is stirred into rice flour and kneaded well; a handful of dough is flattened and wrapped around the filling. Each cake is folded in a single young magnolia leaf and tied with fresh iris grass or straw before steaming. The old way, it's said, was to leave five or six leaves connected at a twig and wrap one cake per leaf without cutting them apart. These days fillings such as yuzu miso or walnut white-miso are also said to appear, varying by household or shop.
Why it took this shape
Kashiwa-mochi wrapped in oak leaves is the standard for Boys' Day, but oak doesn't grow well at Kiso's elevation, so the magnolia tree, which unfurls broad leaves each early summer, is said to have taken its place. Magnolia leaves have a natural antiseptic quality and are said to have long been used for wrapping food. The custom of celebrating the festival a month late, on June 5th, seems to have grown together with whatever plant the mountain climate made available nearby.
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.
- 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.
- Setsubun: ehomaki and lucky beansA guide to ehomaki, the uncut sushi roll said to be eaten facing a lucky direction on Setsubun, and to mamemaki, the bean-throwing custom with roasted lucky beans.
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 Nagano
- Anyoji RamenSaku's miso ramen built around Anyoji miso, held to be the root of Shinshu miso.
- Gudakusan Miso ShiruRoot vegetables like daikon, carrot, and burdock go generously into this everyday miso soup of Nagano. Packing it with vegetables is said to allow less miso overall, and wheat dumplings are sometimes dropped in to make it a meal in itself.
- HangoroshiSticky rice, pounded only halfway to a texture called hangoroshi, is coated in sweet bean paste or roasted soybean flour — eastern Nagano's version of botamochi and ohagi, called one name in spring and the other in autumn, a festive sweet that busy farm households could put together quickly.
- Hitashi MameGreen soybeans are boiled until still faintly crisp, then steeped in a lightly seasoned dashi — a dish of northern and eastern Nagano also made with the saddle-marked kurakake bean, sometimes paired with herring roe as part of New Year's osechi.
- Hoshikabocha no EgomaaeKabocha squash, sliced into strips and sun-dried until brittle, is rehydrated and tossed in ground perilla seed — a preserved dish of the Kinasa area born from the need to keep squash, which spoils easily over winter, also used simmered or as filling for oyaki.
- ImonamasuJulienned potato has its starch thoroughly rinsed away, then gets stir-fried in oil and vinegar until crisp — a dish of Iiyama City said to have been eaten since the Edo period and served on large plates at gatherings and ceremonies.