Sweets
Ikinari Dango
Ikinari dango — steamed dumpling wrapping sweet potato and sweet bean paste
Slices of sweet potato and sweet bean paste are wrapped in a wheat dough and steamed into a snack. "Ikinari" means "quickly" in Kumamoto dialect, said to reflect how fast it could be made for a visiting guest, best eaten warm.
- Origin: Kumamoto Kikuchi
- About 870 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
A plain snack made by wrapping sliced raw sweet potato, along with sweet red bean paste, in a wheat-flour dough and steaming it. The fluffy sweet potato meets the sweetness of the paste and a faint saltiness in the dough, and eating it hot, straight off the steamer, is said to be the standard way. The volcanic ash soil around the foot of Mount Aso, including Otsu, said to be the prefecture's top sweet potato producer, is credited with supporting the crop.
How it's made
Sweet potato is peeled and sliced into rounds. A dough of wheat flour, dumpling flour and salt is rolled thin, wrapped around the sweet potato and sweet red bean paste, and steamed. Eating it hot, right after steaming, is the standard, though some also eat a frozen version after it's partly thawed. More variety has crept in over time too, with mugwort or brown sugar kneaded into the dough, or purple sweet potato used as the filling.
Why it took this shape
In areas around the foot of Mount Aso, where volcanic ash soil favors sweet potato growing, the snack is said to have long been made in individual households during breaks in the harvest-season farm work. 'Ikinari' means 'quick and simple' in the local dialect, and that same ease — simple enough to serve even an unexpected guest right away — is thought to live on in both the name and how the dish is eaten. In an era when rice was scarce, the dough was made from wheat flour alone; wrapping it around sweet red bean paste is said to have become the norm only a few decades ago.
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.
- Tanabata and festival food stallsA guide to the somen said to be eaten on Tanabata, and to festival-stall staples like yakisoba, takoyaki, candy apples, and shaved ice.
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 Kumamoto
- Amakusa DaioA large-bodied meat fowl once kept in Amakusa in the Meiji and Taisho eras, said to have died out in the early Showa period before Kumamoto prefecture spent roughly a decade recreating it; reportedly among the biggest jidori breeds, shipped at 120–150 days.
- Gane-ageSweet potato cut into batons is coated in a ginger-sweetened batter and deep-fried. "Gane" is Amakusa dialect for crab, said to describe the shape of the fried strands, and the dish also serves as a vegetarian offering at Buddhist services.
- Tai SomenSomen noodles are simmered in the broth of sea bream head and bones cooked down whole — a celebratory dish said to reflect the influence of nearby Shimabara's somen tradition. In Yamato's Mamihara, a version called "taimen" simmers the whole fish instead.
- Tako MeshiSun-dried octopus is rehydrated, chopped, and either cooked into rice with burdock and carrot or mixed in afterward — a dish that leans on the concentrated flavor of dried octopus, known for the summer sight of octopus hung out to dry in Amakusa's Ariake.
- Baniku SobaFrom the Aso area of Kumamoto: hot soba topped with horse meat simmered sweet and salty. It's said to carry the history of a region where horse meat took root as a restorative food for the injured and ill.
- ButaaeBoiled octopus and eggplant are stir-fried in a sweet, spicy barley miso — an Amakusa home dish said to have begun as a stand-in for pork, once hard to come by, using the local octopus instead while keeping the old name, "pork mix."