Sweets
Tanabata Hoto
Tanabata hoto — wide wheat noodles tossed sweet for the Star Festival
Wide wheat noodles, kneaded and cut by hand then boiled, are tossed sweet with red bean paste, roasted soybean flour, or sesame — a Star Festival dish of the Matsumoto area, offered alongside paper Tanabata dolls on the delayed date of August 7, distinct from the savory miso hoto eaten as a soup elsewhere.
- Origin: Nagano Matsumoto
- About 170 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Wheat dough is kneaded, cut into thick noodles, and boiled, then tossed with sweet red bean paste, roasted soybean flour, or sesame. The chewy bite of the thick noodle against the sweetness of the bean paste and the toasty soybean flour is said to be the appeal. Unlike the everyday hoto eaten as a soup, this is a sweet dish made only for Tanabata, people say.
How it's made
Wheat flour is kneaded into a dough, rolled out, and cut into thick noodles before boiling. The boiled noodles are said to be finished with sweet red bean paste or roasted soybean flour, and some versions work mugwort into the dough. It's said to be offered under the eaves alongside Tanabata paper dolls, together with the season's harvested vegetables and fruit.
Why it took this shape
In the Matsumoto area, many farming households grew wheat, and the harvest is said to have coincided with Tanabata, leading people to make this dish with the freshly milled flour as an offering. In a region that keeps many of its annual events on the old lunar calendar or a month late, Tanabata itself is said to fall on August 7th here. The custom of offering it alongside paper dolls meant to ward off misfortune seems to be what gave rise to a sweet festival food distinct from the everyday, savory hoto.
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.
- 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.
- Setsubun: ehomaki and lucky beansA guide to ehomaki, the uncut sushi roll said to be eaten facing a lucky direction on Setsubun, and to mamemaki, the bean-throwing custom with roasted lucky beans.
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 Nagano
- Anyoji RamenSaku's miso ramen built around Anyoji miso, held to be the root of Shinshu miso.
- Gudakusan Miso ShiruRoot vegetables like daikon, carrot, and burdock go generously into this everyday miso soup of Nagano. Packing it with vegetables is said to allow less miso overall, and wheat dumplings are sometimes dropped in to make it a meal in itself.
- HangoroshiSticky rice, pounded only halfway to a texture called hangoroshi, is coated in sweet bean paste or roasted soybean flour — eastern Nagano's version of botamochi and ohagi, called one name in spring and the other in autumn, a festive sweet that busy farm households could put together quickly.
- Hitashi MameGreen soybeans are boiled until still faintly crisp, then steeped in a lightly seasoned dashi — a dish of northern and eastern Nagano also made with the saddle-marked kurakake bean, sometimes paired with herring roe as part of New Year's osechi.
- Hoshikabocha no EgomaaeKabocha squash, sliced into strips and sun-dried until brittle, is rehydrated and tossed in ground perilla seed — a preserved dish of the Kinasa area born from the need to keep squash, which spoils easily over winter, also used simmered or as filling for oyaki.
- Hoba MakiRice-flour dough kneaded with hot water wraps sweet bean paste, then steams inside a magnolia leaf — a Kiso festival mochi. With no oak trees in the mountains, magnolia stood in, and locals say the leaf's scent settles in best the next day.