Sweets
Sorakitamochi
Sorakitamochi — sweet potato and wheat-dough mochi from Himeshima island
Boiled sweet potato is split into a flour-kneaded wrapper and a sugared filling, then dusted with kinako — a Himeshima island sweet said to be named for how quickly it comes together for a sudden guest, with no steaming step needed.
- Origin: Oita Himeshima
- About 770 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
This confection from Himeshima island pairs sweet potato dough with a sweet potato filling, using boiled and mashed potato for both parts. Half is kneaded with strong bread flour into a soft, chewy skin, while the other half is worked with sugar and salt into a mellow, sticky filling. A dusting of roasted kinako soybean flour rounds out the simple sweetness, so each bite carries more flavor the longer it is chewed.
How it's made
Peeled sweet potato is sliced into rounds, soaked in water, and boiled until soft. Half of it is mashed in the pot and kneaded with strong flour added little by little, then covered so residual heat cooks the flour through into a dough. The other half is kneaded with sugar and salt into a filling. The filling is wrapped in the dough and the whole thing is dusted with kinako, with no steaming step required, making it quick to put together on short notice.
Why it took this shape
Himeshima, a small island off the western tip of the Seto Inland Sea, reportedly had little land suited to rice growing, so wheat flour and sweet potato became everyday staples instead, and most households are said to have kept boiled sweet potato on hand. Because it comes together quickly from ingredients already in the kitchen, it could reportedly be made on the spot for a sudden guest, said to be the source of its name, a phrase meaning "here they come." It reflects the resourcefulness of island life.
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.
- Takeout and convenience store customsHow to answer "Shall I warm it up?", choosing chopsticks and a paid plastic bag, saying whether you'll eat in or take out, handling trash and eating while walking, and the different tax rate for takeout versus eating in.
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 Oita
- Aji no MaruzushiA whole horse mackerel, cured in plum vinegar and opened flat, is wrapped around vinegared rice and rolled in red shiso leaf — a celebratory sushi from Saiki, painstaking to prepare, built on the rich mackerel landed from the Bungo Channel.
- AmimeshiKrill simmered sweet-savory in mirin, soy sauce, and ginger is folded into freshly steamed rice — a dish from the Usa, Nakatsu, and Bungotakada coast, where krill are hauled from the Buzen Sea tideflats each autumn and winter; a favorite of the northern Oita coast.
- Atama RyoriGills, jaw, and innards of a large fish like grouper are quickly parboiled along with the flesh and piled onto a single platter — a dish from inland Taketa, far from the sea, said to have grown from a wish to waste nothing of a rare catch, served with a citrus dipping sauce.
- Ayu UrukaAyu (sweetfish) flesh or innards are minced with salt and left to ferment for about a week — an Oita salted delicacy said to have begun as a way to keep the clean river's seasonal catch; the innards-only version, nigauruka, carries a distinctive bitterness.
- Beppu ReimenThe dish's spread is traced to around 1950, when a cook repatriated from what had been Manchuria began making cold noodles in Beppu. Genso Arirang, founded that same year, is often named as the pioneering shop; the local style pairs a Japanese-style seafood stock with noodles made from buckwheat, wheat, and starch.
- Dango-jiruWheat dough kneaded and stretched into flat ribbons is simmered with root vegetables and shiitake in a barley-miso broth — an everyday Oita dish born of the prefecture's flour-based food culture, where poor rice land pushed wheat to the fore; the ribbons keep a firmer bite than udon.