Sweets
Natsumikan Gashi
Natsumikan gashi — candied peel from the sour orange that saved a samurai town
Natsumikan citrus peel is boiled repeatedly to soften it, simmered in sugar syrup, and dusted with granulated sugar for this Hagi confection. Cultivation is said to have begun when a former official distributed saplings to impoverished samurai households after the domain's seat moved away, and the sweet grew from a wish to waste nothing, not even the peel.
- Origin: Yamaguchi Hagi
- About 770 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Natsumikan citrus peel is boiled repeatedly to soften it, simmered in sugar syrup, and dusted with granulated sugar for this Hagi confection. The peel's faint bitterness, drawn out through boiling, meets a moist sweetness soaked through with syrup, and the citrus aroma spreads with every bite. Made from natsumikan harvested in early May around Hagi, the sweet has also long been sold as a souvenir alongside natsumikan jam and juice.
How it's made
The skin of the natsumikan is peeled thin with a vegetable peeler, quartered, and cut into strips about a centimeter wide. It is boiled two or three times in plenty of water, topped up with fresh water as it cooks, until soft, then left to soak overnight to draw out bitterness. An amount of sugar close to the drained peel's weight is added gradually as the peel simmers over low heat until its white pith turns translucent. It is drained of syrup in a strainer, fanned cool, then dusted with granulated sugar to finish.
Why it took this shape
Natsumikan is said to have been brought to Hagi in the early 1800s, first used as a stand-in for yuzu. When the domain's seat of government moved from Hagi to Yamaguchi and left the townspeople impoverished, a figure connected to the new government is said to have distributed natsumikan saplings to the empty samurai estates left behind, marking the start of its cultivation there. Turning even the peel into a sweet, rather than wasting it, appears to be a habit of resourcefulness left over from an era when sugar and sweets were scarce.
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 Yamaguchi
- Chikin Chikin GoboBite-size fried chicken and deep-fried burdock are tossed in a sweet soy glaze in this dish, born in Yamaguchi's school lunches. A nutrition teacher is said to have devised it around 1995 from recipes submitted by families, and its catchy, rhythmic name helped it spread into a statewide favorite.
- Chisha NamasuKakichisha, an heirloom crinkled lettuce grown around Shimonoseki, is torn by hand and tossed with vinegared miso, flaked grilled fish, or whitebait. It is said to have been devised by the Mori domain's people after being impoverished by the Battle of Sekigahara, and is also known as "chishamomi."
- Choshu KurokashiwaSaid to draw on the blood of Kurokashiwa, a natural-monument fowl native to Yamaguchi and Shimane, developed into a jidori by a Yamaguchi research station and finished and named by a poultry farm; reportedly free-ranged for 80–100 days.
- Fugu no KaraagePufferfish, marinated in soy sauce and sake, is coated in potato starch and deep-fried—a homely dish from the Shimonoseki and Hagi areas. While pricier tiger pufferfish goes into sashimi and hot pot, the more affordable shirosabafugu species is the one most often fried this way.
- Fuku SashiPufferfish sashimi is sliced so thin it becomes translucent, then arranged in a chrysanthemum pattern in this Shimonoseki dish. Locals call the fish "fuku," a homophone for good fortune, and eat it with citrus ponzu and scallion; the practice traces to 1888, when eating pufferfish was legalized in Yamaguchi alone.
- GobomakiLizardfish skin, a byproduct of making fish cakes, is wrapped around a skewer of burdock root and grilled with a basting sauce—a dish from Hagi. Because it uses lizardfish, prized for the region's grilled fish cakes, seafood processors often make the two together, and it is a fixture of festival and cherry-blossom bento.