Fermented & preserved ── Tsukemono (pickles)
Nukazuke
Nukazuke — vegetables (and sometimes fish) fermented in a living rice-bran bed
Vegetables (and in some regions, fish) fermented in a nuka-doko — rice bran mixed with salt. Lactic bacteria and yeast in the bed give it a distinctive sourness, and the bed itself is stirred daily and passed down as a household's own particular flavor.
Lineage
What it's made of
Vegetables are pickled in nuka-doko, rice bran mixed with salt. Lactic bacteria and yeast in the bed are said to produce a distinctive sourness and deep flavor, and vitamin B1 from the bran is said to transfer into the vegetables. Takuan, made from dried daikon, is itself classed as a form of nukazuke, and in some regions fish, not just vegetables, goes into the bed.
How it's made
A nuka-doko bed is meant to be stirred daily to keep it alive, and some households pass down beds said to be a hundred years old. Beyond pickling vegetables, some regions use a well-aged bed to simmer oily fish, a step said to cut the fish's raw smell. Elsewhere, mackerel and other fish are salted first and then bran-pickled for long-term storage.
Why it took this shape
As milling technology improved and rice bran became newly abundant, pickling vegetables in a bran bed is thought to have been devised around the Muromachi period as a way to put it to use. Kitakyushu's nukamiso-daki, nutritious and long-keeping, is said to have doubled as battle rations and was reportedly named jindani by the ruling lord of the day. Coastal areas developed ways to preserve fish in bran, while inland regions built nukazuke of vegetables into an everyday fixture of the table.
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
Known for it here
- Known for it here: Fukui, Mihama (Wakasa)
Heshiko — mackerel and other fish salted, then further pickled in rice bran — is said to have served as a vital protein source through hard winters.
- Known for it here: Fukuoka, Kitakyushu
A nuka-doko bed once kept as a preserve by the Kokura domain has been passed down through old households and lives on as nukamiso-daki, fish simmered in aged bran.
Contrast
- UmeboshiPlums cured in salt, then sun-dried — one of Japan's oldest table preserves. In southern Wakayama, cultivation is said to have spread after wild plum trees on tax-exempt wasteland were deliberately encouraged as a way to ease the local tax burden.
- KasuzukeA family of pickles made by repacking salted vegetables again and again in aged sake lees. The lees' sugar and umami are said to seep in over time, turning the vegetable a deep amber — a method that took hold especially where sake breweries were plentiful.