Fermented & preserved ── Tsukemono (pickles)
Harihari-zuke
Harihari-zuke — thick-cut dried daikon pickled crisp in soy and kelp, from Miura
Daikon 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.
- Origin: Kanagawa Miura
- About 60 km south of Tokyo
What it's made of
Daikon cut thicker than ordinary kiriboshi strips — wari-boshi daikon — is pickled in soy sauce or a dashi-based marinade. Kelp and dried squid are often added, and a crisp, crunchy bite is the point. Some households add turban shell or wakame, or spike it with chili. As a Miura specialty, it's eaten frequently as an everyday food by local farming households.
How it's made
Daikon is trimmed and split lengthwise into 16 to 20 pieces, then sun-dried for about two weeks to make wari-boshi daikon. Pickled in a marinade of kelp, dried squid, and soy sauce, it becomes harihari-zuke, and more recently some cooks work in kimchi seasoning for a twist. Wari-boshi daikon itself is registered under the Kanagawa Brand program promoting regional specialties.
Why it took this shape
Miura, surrounded by sea on three sides, grows vegetables in open fields year-round and is said to have been a nationally designated growing area with Japan's largest daikon output. Daikon cultivation there is said to date to the Edo period, and wari-boshi daikon and harihari-zuke took hold as one of the region's ways to preserve it. In the late Meiji era, crossing a local strain with Nerima daikon also produced Miura daikon.
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
- Bettara-zukeDaikon 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."
- 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.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Kanagawa
- DoriaButter rice topped with shrimp in cream, covered in white sauce and cheese and baked. Said to have been improvised at a Yokohama hotel for a guest who wasn't feeling well.
- Ebi MayoBattered, fried shrimp are tossed in a sweet mayonnaise-based sauce — said to have begun when a Cantonese chef, unsatisfied with a mayonnaise-dressed shrimp dish he'd eaten in the United States, remade it his own way.
- Gyu NabeA Yokohama-born hot pot of beef, tofu and chrysanthemum greens simmered from the start in a soy or miso-based sauce. Born of the port city's encounter with Western meat-eating culture, it is said to trace to a tavern owner who opened one of the first beef-pot restaurants.
- Herahera DangoA confection from Sajima in Yokosuka City, flattened dumplings of wheat or glutinous rice flour coated in sweet bean paste. Offered at the shrine during a summer boat festival to pray for a good catch and good health, it is still shared among family.
- Hiratsuka-kei TanmenA clear, salt-based broth carries a faint edge of acidity, topped with wakame seaweed and chopped onion — a thinner, less thickened bowl than the typical Kanagawa tanmen, said to have taken root among Chinese-style diners in Hiratsuka.
- Iekei RamenPork bone and chicken carcass simmered long and finished with a dark soy tare and chicken fat, paired with thick, short noodles, spinach, and nori — traced to a shop that opened in 1974 in Yokohama's Shinsugita district and is said to have spread among workers in the surrounding industrial zone.