Sweets
Karukan
Karukan — a featherlight steamed cake of grated mountain yam, once served only to lords
Grated mountain yam and rice flour are steamed into a cake so light it's named with characters meaning 'light yokan' — steaming leaves it lighter than the raw batter. Said to have been devised by a confectioner the Satsuma lord brought from Edo, it was once a treat reserved for the ruling family alone.
- Origin: Kagoshima City, Kagoshima
- About 970 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Grated Japanese mountain yam is combined with sugar and karukan flour and steamed into this well-known Kagoshima confection. Once steamed, the cake turns wonderfully light, and the yam's faint, distinctive flavor spreads through the mouth alongside a gentle sweetness. A version filled with sweet bean paste, called karukan manju, is equally popular, and the cake's lightness after steaming is said to be where its name comes from.
How it's made
Grated Japanese mountain yam is mixed with water, then sugar and karukan flour are stirred in. The dough is divided, wrapped around sweet bean paste, and steamed for just under 30 minutes. When karukan flour isn't on hand, rice flour can be used in its place. How finely the yam is grated affects the stickiness of the batter and, in turn, how light the finished cake turns out, so care is taken at that step.
Why it took this shape
In Kagoshima, where the Shirasu plateau spreads across much of the land, wild yam, the confection's key ingredient, grew in abundance, and sugar was relatively easy to obtain from Amami and Ryukyu, conditions said to have let the sweet take root. One prevailing account credits a confectioner brought in by the Satsuma lord Shimazu Nariakira with inventing it; because sugar was precious at the time, it was eaten mainly in the lord's household, and it is said to have reached ordinary people only from the Meiji era onward. The wild yam's peak season from autumn to winter is even known locally as karukan season.
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.