Sweets
Mitori Manju
Mitori manju — steamed buns leavened with baking soda and filled with summer red bean
Baking soda puffs these steamed buns up round, giving them a faint bitter edge — filled with paste from a summer-harvested bean called mitori, and said to be offered to ancestors at Obon in the Kitakyushu area.
- Origin: Fukuoka Kitakyushu
- About 840 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
A wheat-flour dough leavened with baking soda is steamed around a filling of mitori beans, a summer-harvested variety of azuki, giving the bun the faint aroma and slight bitterness that baking soda leaves behind; it's also known by another name tied to that same ingredient. It's said to be a home confection distinctive to a region known for growing wheat, one of the largest wheat-growing areas by acreage in the country.
How it's made
Water and sugar are combined with wheat flour and baking soda dissolved in water to form a dough about as soft as an earlobe. It's divided, wrapped around the bean filling, shaped into rounds, and steamed. The baking soda is what makes the dough rise and puff into its rounded shape, and because so few mitori beans are grown, nearly all of them are said to be consumed locally, with different wheat varieties grown region by region to suit the climate.
Why it took this shape
In a region known for growing wheat, it's said to have taken hold as a home confection made from the flour that was always close at hand. This bun made with mitori beans is still made for the Bon festival today, offered to ancestors and shared with neighbors and relatives, a custom said to persist to this day. The bean's local name is said to come from how easily its pod releases the bean inside.
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 Fukuoka
- Abutte KamoSmall damselfish are salted overnight, then grilled whole, scales and innards left on — a bony fish often passed over elsewhere, but said to have caught on in Hakata Bay after a Meiji-era glut led someone to salt and grill the excess.
- Achara ZukeWhite melon, eggplant, and lotus root are pickled in a sweet vinegar spiked with red chili — the name is said to trace to the Portuguese 'achar', carried in through Hakata Bay's old trade, and an odd number of vegetables is used for Obon hospitality.
- Amagi no KawatakeA rare wild freshwater algae, found only in the Kogane River in Asakura, is dressed with sweet or three-flavor vinegar — said to have once been presented to the shogun, and now conservation efforts continue as it's listed as endangered.
- Beta MochiWheat dough is flattened, steamed, and topped with soybean flour or sweet red bean paste — named, it's said, for its resemblance to a flat local sole called 'beta', and tied to the feast marking the end of rice planting.
- Kabocha no Dango JiruA giant local pumpkin from Buzen's Mikkado district is simmered soft, then torn wheat dumplings are dropped in — the pumpkin, said to trace some 450 years back to Portuguese traders, was once a lifeline in leaner years.
- ChanraaA noodle dish said to have started at a diner in Moji, Kitakyushu. Chanpon-style noodles go into a Japanese dried-sardine broth closer to udon than to the original pork-and-seafood soup, devised, it's said, for a student who wanted Nagasaki champon but couldn't afford it.