Sweets
Yaseuma
Yaseuma — boiled flat wheat-dough noodles dusted with sweetened soybean flour
Wheat dough is stretched thin and long by hand, boiled, then dusted with sweetened soybean flour — an Oita sweet said to trace back to Furuno in Yufu City, its name linked to a nursemaid's tale of feeding a hungry young lord; a companion, alongside dango-jiru, to the prefecture's flour-based food culture.
- Origin: Oita Yufu
- About 800 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Yaseuma is a simple Oita snack made by kneading wheat flour dough, stretching it thin and flat, boiling it, then dusting it with kinako soybean flour and sugar. Stretching the dough well takes practice, and a skilled hand can pull it thinner and longer. The chewy dough carries the nutty kinako and sugar's sweetness, growing more flavorful the more it's chewed.
How it's made
Wheat flour kneaded with water is shaped into a rope, left to rest, then stretched thin by hand and boiled. It is dusted with kinako and sugar while still warm, though it's also eaten chilled. Some versions swap in sweet red bean paste or roasted barley flour for the kinako, or brown sugar for the white, and dusting it with cocoa powder or matcha is another way to enjoy it.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to trace back to Furuno in Yufu, where, in the Heian period, a wet nurse named Yase is said to have taken a young lord of a noble family to visit a temple; when the hungry child called for something to eat, she is said to have fed him wheat flour stretched thin and dusted with kinako, giving the snack its name. Oita's long history of grain farming on its plateaus is said to have laid the groundwork for this flour-based food culture. The snack is also offered at Tanabata and Obon, sometimes described as string used to bundle offerings for ancestral spirits on their way home.
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
Contrast
- 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.
- Ishigaki MochiCut sweet potato is kneaded with wheat flour and water, shaped, and steamed — an Oita sweet said to be named for its rough, stone-wall-like surface, once shared as a between-chores snack across the prefecture.
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.