Fermented & preserved ── Tsukemono (pickles)
Hida Akakabu-zuke
Hida akakabu-zuke — a red turnip pickle that turns a mountain valley's winter table crimson
Whole turnips salted down in barrels — a preserve from the snowbound Hida region. The skin's pigment bleeds crimson into the flesh as fermentation proceeds, in a method said to date to the Edo period, when it helped stretch precious salt.
- Origin: Gifu Takayama and Hida
- About 230 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
The turnip used is Hida-beni kabu, said to have first appeared in 1918 as a red mutant of the Hachiga turnip. The soft, swollen root's sugar combines with lactic bacteria to produce a faintly sour, distinctive taste. The vivid red comes from pigment in the skin, which is said to bleed further into the once-white flesh — and deepen in flavor — as fermentation proceeds.
How it's made
Turnips are packed tight into a barrel of brine, salted layer by layer, then weighted and left at room temperature. About fifteen days in, the barrel's contents are turned top to bottom in a step called tenchi-gae, said to even out the salt and improve the color; any white yeast rising to the surface is skimmed off regularly, and after roughly two months of fermentation and aging, it's ready to eat.
Why it took this shape
In the deep, snowbound Hida region, this red-turnip pickle is said to have been a vital food source. Hardy against snow and frost, it was passed down within families, and November brought nasai, a ritual washing of pickling vegetables in the river, said to have marked the arrival of winter. Salt being scarce in this mountainous region, the method is said to have taken hold since the Edo period as a way to use it sparingly.
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 Gifu
- Akadatsu no SubuteThe red-purple leaf stalk of taro, called akadatsu, has its fibers removed and is salt-rubbed before being dressed in a sweetened vinegar — a dish of Yamagata City on land whose lime-poor, thin soil suited taro cultivation, once said to be fed to new mothers to aid recovery.
- Ayu NarezushiAyu heading downriver to spawn in autumn, often carrying roe, are salted and stuffed with freshly cooked rice, then packed in a barrel to ferment for about two months — a narezushi of Gifu City said to have been made from fish caught at the Nagara River's cormorant fishery and once presented to the shogunate.
- Ayu ZosuiAyu, grilled plain until fragrant, is flaked and briefly simmered with dashi and rice into a light porridge — a Gifu river-fish dish said to have begun as a way to use ayu too damaged from fishing to sell whole, often served as the closing course at restaurants specializing in ayu.
- FunamisoCrucian carp, first grilled plain, simmers for hours with rehydrated soybeans, then finishes in soybean miso and coarse sugar — a river-fish dish of the Seino region, where the miso's strong umami is said to soften the fish's characteristic edge, simmered until the flesh falls apart as a winter keeping food.
- Ayu no ShioyakiAyu are salted all over, given a decorative touch of salt on fin and tail, then grilled over charcoal on both sides — a river-fish dish of Gifu, said to draw on fish caught fresh at the 1,300-year-old Nagara River cormorant fishery or at the traditional yana weirs that channel fish into a catch.
- Gohei MochiCrushed rice is skewered and grilled, then glazed with a walnut- or peanut-flecked sauce — a dish of the Tono and Hida areas where soy-based sauce dominates north of the old Nakasendo road and miso-based sauce south of it, traditionally served to celebrate the new rice harvest or to honor a guest.