Sweets
Janbo Mochi
Janbo mochi — two skewers through soft mochi, glazed in a thick soy-sugar sauce
Fresh mochi threaded on two bamboo skewers, glazed with a thick soy-and-sugar sauce — a specialty of Kagoshima City's Iso district. Its name, written with characters for 'two poles,' is said to trace to an episode of hospitality shown to a visiting prince at Taniyama Castle in the fourteenth century.
- Origin: Kagoshima City, Kagoshima
- About 970 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Freshly pounded mochi or dumplings made from glutinous rice flour are skewered on two sticks and coated in a thick, sweet soy sauce glaze or miso sauce, a local sweet from the Iso area of Kagoshima City. Lightly grilling the mochi before glazing it adds a toasty note that plays against the glaze's sweet-savory flavor. It is written with characters meaning "two rods of mochi."
How it's made
Glutinous rice flour is mixed with water into a dough about as firm as an earlobe, shaped into rounds about 3 centimeters across, and boiled. Once drained, each round is skewered on two sticks, lightly grilled, and finished with either a sweet soy glaze or a miso-based sauce. The lightly charred surface from grilling is said to cling especially well to the sauce, deepening the toasty flavor.
Why it took this shape
One story traces the dish to the Nanboku-cho period, when Prince Kaneyoshi was staying at Taniyama Castle in what is now Kagoshima City; the castle lord is said to have skewered mochi on two sticks and served it with a sauce of simmered miso and brown sugar to entertain him, answering a question about the dish's name on the spot with a word that became its name. The dish reportedly reached the Shimazu lords of Satsuma during the Edo period, spreading from there through the Iso area. Another account likens the two skewers to a pair of swords once worn at the hip by upper-ranking samurai.
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.
- Izakaya customsFrom the small starter dish called otoshi, the classic "for now, a draft beer" first order, ordering a little at a time, choosing tare or shio for yakitori, soy sauce dishes, a closing course, and last orders and smoking rules.
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.
- 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.