Sweets
Yoshino Kuzumochi
Yoshino kuzumochi — a jelly-like cake made from Yoshino arrowroot starch
A 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.
- Origin: Nara Yoshino
- About 380 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
A jelly-like cake made from kudzu starch, prized for its clear, wobbly texture. It is usually eaten topped with soybean flour or dark sugar syrup, and when freshly made and set quickly in ice water, it offers a chewy bounce alongside a faint lingering warmth.
How it's made
Kudzu starch is kneaded with water and sugar, then chilled until set. It is served topped with soybean flour or dark sugar syrup. Besides kuzumochi, kudzu starch is also used in sesame tofu, kudzu-yu drinks, and kudzu noodles, among other dishes and sweets.
Why it took this shape
The name "kuzu" is said to come from the Kuzubito, people who lived in the Yoshino region of Nara and made and sold starch from the kudzu root. The "Yoshino-zarashi" method, in which the starch is repeatedly refined using only groundwater in the depths of winter and then dried over two or three months, is said to be a traditional technique dating to the Edo period. The harsh cold and clean water of Yoshino are said to produce a fine, additive-free starch.
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
- Warabi MochiA 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.
- KuzumochiKudzu starch dissolved in water and sugar, worked until translucent and set into a soft, jelly-like mochi. Known for a refining method called "Yoshino-zarashi," using icy winter groundwater, it is typically topped with roasted soybean flour or dark syrup.
- KakigoriShaved ice topped with syrup, a summer sweet in Nara. Nara City's Himuro Shrine is said to have sent ice to the imperial court for roughly seventy years, and Sei Shonagon is said to describe shaved ice sweetened with amazura sap in the Pillow Book.
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.