Sweets
Warabi Mochi
Warabi mochi — a soft jelly-like sweet made from bracken-root starch
A Nara sweet made by cooking bracken-root starch with water and sugar into a soft, chilled jelly. Bracken is said to have grown thick on the hillside after the annual burning of Mount Wakakusa, making the area a source of the starch, and an Edo-period travel account already names it a specialty of teahouses there.
- Origin: Nara City, Nara
- About 380 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
A confection made by kneading bracken-root starch with water and sugar, then chilling it until set. The starch, drawn from the bracken plant's root, is extracted in very small quantities and is highly prized, so commercial versions often substitute starch from sweet potato or tapioca.
How it's made
Bracken starch, sugar, and water are heated in a pot and stirred constantly without letting them scorch until the mixture turns translucent. It is kneaded further over low heat, then served in a bowl topped with soybean flour or dark sugar syrup.
Why it took this shape
A legend held that a demon emerging from an ancient burial mound on Mount Wakakusa could be driven off by burning the mountain, and this is said to have led people to set fires there on their own, which in turn is said to be why Todai-ji, Kofuku-ji, and the local magistrate's office began jointly burning the mountain in a controlled way, in what became the Wakakusayama Yaki fire festival. Bracken is said to have grown abundantly after the burning, and because the deer of Nara Park did not eat it, it spread further, making the area a source of bracken starch. A travel account from the Edo period already mentions a "bracken mochi teahouse," suggesting the sweet was already a local specialty by then.
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
Contrast
- Yoshino KuzumochiA Nara sweet made by dissolving Yoshino arrowroot starch in water and sugar and stirring it over heat until translucent. It is refined through the Yoshino-zarashi method, repeated rinsing in midwinter groundwater, and is eaten with soybean flour or dark syrup, whether chilled firm or still faintly warm from the pan.
- WarabimochiStarch extracted from bracken root, simmered with water and sugar and chilled until set. Bracken starch has long been a costly ingredient due to the labor of gathering and refining it, and the sweet is typically topped with roasted soybean flour or dark syrup.
Also from Nara
- Amago no KanroniRiver trout, called the queen of the mountain stream, first grilled plain and then simmered in roasted tea before being finished sweet and savory in soy sauce and mirin — a dish of the Yoshino and Uda districts. The fish is said to have little of a river-fish's usual edge, and the dish is remembered as a mother's home cooking.
- Asuka NabeA hot pot from Asuka Village of chicken and seasonal vegetables simmered in milk and dashi. It is said to trace to a dairy product brought from Tang China in the Asuka period and later reworked by monks who simmered their chickens in milk, taking its present form around the early Showa era.
- Ayu ZushiA whole sweetfish pressed onto vinegared rice, made along the Yoshino River. Sweetfish, raised on river-stone algae, are called kogyo, 'fragrant fish,' and the sushi is said to have become known in part because a sushi shop featured in a kabuki play actually existed in Nara.
- DengaraA sweet from Higashiyoshino and Kawakami villages: bean-paste mochi steamed inside magnolia leaves. It is made for Boys' Day, wishing a son success and safe growth, and because each leaf on a single branch is wrapped around its own mochi, the finished cluster hangs like a bunch of fruit.
- Ei no NikogoriRed stingray simmered sweet and savory in soy sauce and sugar, a Nara dish. Its own gelatin dissolves into the cooking liquid and sets into a jelly once cooled, giving the dish its name, nikogori. It is said to have been eaten together with noppei at Kasuga Shrine's Wakamiya festival.
- Hangesho MochiA Nara Basin mochi pounded from cracked wheat and glutinous rice around hangesho, the eleventh day after the summer solstice. It is made at the point when the wheat harvest and rice planting both wind down, and is also called sanaburi mochi for the rite that sends off the rice-field deity.