Fermented & preserved ── Tsukemono (pickles)
Bettara-zuke
Bettara-zuke — daikon pickled sweet in rice malt, a Nihonbashi autumn tradition
Daikon salted first, then pickled sweet in rice malt and sugar — said to descend from a lightly pickled daikon once sold at Edo's ebisu-kō market. The rice malt gives it a natural sweetness, and it still headlines Nihonbashi's autumn "Bettara Market."
- Origin: Tokyo Chuo (Nihonbashi)
Lineage
What it's made of
Daikon is first salted, then pickled in rice malt, sugar, mirin, and kelp. The generous use of malt gives it a refined sweetness, and daikon varieties favored in Edo — Nerima daikon and its descendant Tokoji daikon, both notably pungent and slightly bitter — are said to have suited themselves equally well to bettara-zuke or to drying into takuan. City dwellers in Edo are said to have mostly stopped making pickles at home and bought them from pickle shops instead.
How it's made
Peeled daikon is salted, weighted overnight to draw out water, then air-dried for about half a day before being layered with rice malt, sugar, mirin, and kelp; it's ready in one to three days. Fermentation is said to sharpen the sourness over time, so once made it's kept refrigerated. Made to follow the daikon harvest, it was mainly an autumn-to-winter food in the Edo period.
Why it took this shape
It is said to trace to a lightly salted daikon once sold at Edo's ebisu-kō market fairs, with the name supposedly coming from young men swinging the string-tied pickle at women, warning “it'll stick to you” (bettari tsuku zo). Large merchant households are said to have contracted with farmers in Nerima village to prepare a year's worth of pickles, and Nihonbashi's Takarada Ebisu Shrine still holds its centuries-old autumn “Bettara Market” every year.
Before you go
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
- 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.
- Enjoying a bussanten (regional products fair)A guide to what's sold at a bussanten (regional products fair), how to find one, when it gets crowded, shelf life and taking food home, and how to fit one around a trip.
Dishes in the same style
- Fukujin-zukeSeven kinds of vegetables — daikon, eggplant, lotus root among them — diced and steeped in a soy-based marinade. Said to have originated in Tokyo, it's best known today as curry rice's standard side.
- Harihari-zukeDaikon cut thicker than ordinary kiriboshi strips, dried, then pickled in a soy-based sauce — a Miura Peninsula specialty. Its name is said to echo the crisp "hari-hari" bite, developed in Miura, a daikon-growing region since the Edo period.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Related lineage
- TakuanSun-dried daikon pickled in rice bran and salt — the pickle most identified with the whole nuka-zuke family. Widely credited (among other accounts) to the early-Edo monk Takuan Soho, it takes a different shape in each region depending on the local daikon.
- Sangohachi-zukeVegetables pickled in a bed of salt, rice malt, and rice mixed roughly 3:5:8 — a fermented-rice pickle from around Nihonmatsu, Fukushima. A koji food dating to the Edo period, it is said to have been valued as a ready-made side dish during the rice-planting season.
Also from Tokyo
- Abura SobaNo broth is poured at all — noodles are tossed in a soy-and-sesame-oil tare pooled at the bottom of the bowl, said to have started at shops in the Musashino area in the late 1950s, with vinegar and chili oil stirred in partway through.
- Ajitsuke NoriSheet nori brushed with a soy-and-sugar seasoning and toasted crisp, said to have been devised as a gift for an imperial visit to Kyoto in the Meiji era. Its snap gives way to a burst of flavor and aroma.
- Anago ZushiConger eel, simmered sweet and savory, is laid over sushi rice and brushed with a reduced glaze called tsume — a staple Edomae topping from a fish that thrived in Tokyo Bay's nutrient-rich waters, its slick skin demanding a sushi chef's careful hand to clean.
- AnmitsuCubes of agar jelly topped with red peas, sweet bean paste, and dark syrup. Said to have begun when a Ginza sweets shop in the early Showa era added its own bean paste to the simpler "mitsumame" — jelly and peas in syrup — marking a point where wagashi met café culture.
- Asakusa shichimiA seven-spice chili blend from a shop tracing back to 1625 in Asakusa's old Yagenbori district, often described as the origin point of shichimi togarashi. The neighborhood's history as a hub for medicinal-herb wholesalers is credited with shaping a blend informed by traditional Chinese medicine, and the shop is known for custom-mixing blends to order.
- Chanko NabeChicken, napa cabbage, tofu, and more simmer together in broth — a hot pot born in sumo stables, said to date to the Meiji era, when four-legged meat like beef and pork was avoided since touching a hand to the ground echoed a loss in the ring. Former wrestlers still run chanko restaurants around Ryogoku, keeping their stable's flavor.