Fermented & preserved ── Tsukemono (pickles)
Shiba-zuke
Shiba-zuke — purple shiso-pickled eggplant and cucumber from Kyoto's Ohara valley
Eggplant and cucumber salted together with red shiso, one of Kyoto's "three great pickles." The shiso bleeds a deep purple and sourness into the vegetables — a color and taste said to trace to a dish once offered to the retired Empress Kenreimon-in at Ohara.
- Origin: Kyoto Kyoto (Ohara, Sakyo Ward)
- About 360 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Eggplant, cucumber, and myoga ginger are hand-worked with salt and red shiso leaves. The lead ingredient is Ohara's red shiso, grown in a basin sheltered from outside pollen and, having been propagated for more than 800 cycles, said to sit close to its original form. The shiso's deep purple and sourness carry through into the vegetables, deepening in color and aroma the further fermentation goes.
How it's made
Cut vegetables are worked together with shiso leaves and salt, squeezed of their water, then left to sit in a container for several days. As fermentation proceeds it becomes a side for rice or a drinking snack. Ohara holds a month-long “red shiso opening” event each July timed to the harvest, its first day marked by a small ceremony and a pickling workshop for visitors.
Why it took this shape
Kyoto's groundwater is said to have long supported vegetable growing and, with it, a pickling culture. Tradition credits a monk at Ohara's Sanzen-in temple with devising the dish, and tells of the retired Empress Kenreimon-in, living in seclusion at nearby Jakko-in, delighting in a shiso pickle offered to her and naming it “murasaki-hazuke” — purple leaf pickle — the story behind the name shiba-zuke carries today. It remains a staple stocked by direct-sale stands and pickle merchants across the country.
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
Related lineage
- Suguki-zukeA turnip called suguki, salted alone and left to sour through fermentation — one of Kyoto's "three great pickles." Cultivation is said to trace to shrine families at Kamigamo Shrine, who once presented it to the imperial court.
- Senmai-zukeThin-sliced turnip pickled with kelp and vinegar, one of Kyoto's "three great pickles." Unlike most tsukemono it isn't made for long storage but for a delicate, fresh finish — devised, tradition says, by a cook at the imperial court.
Also from Kyoto
- Chirimen SanshoChirimen-jako simmered sweet-salty with fresh sansho peppercorns in sake, soy sauce, and mirin — a Kyoto side dish said to have begun as a cook's gift in the mid-Showa era. The peppercorns leave a sharp, fragrant aftertaste.
- Ebiimo to Bodara no TaitanEbi-imo, a striped Kyoto heirloom taro named for its shrimp-like ridges, simmers together with bodara, cod dried in Hokkaido. Gelatin from the dried cod is said to keep the taro from falling apart, while the taro's bitterness softens the cod — a textbook 'deaimon' pairing.
- Fushimi no SakeSake from Fushimi in Kyoto, a district fed by groundwater from the Momoyama plateau. Its water is said to be softer than Nada's, giving a round mouthfeel and gentle, full sweetness that overlaps with the profile recognized under the GI Kyoto geographical indication.
- GanmodokiTofu mixed with vegetables, rolled into balls, and fried. Known in Kyoto as hirousu or hiryōzu, thought to have taken this form through the vegetarian temple-cooking idea of a filling dish made without meat.
- Hamo no YakimonoPike conger, riddled with fine bones, is scored with the skilled honekiri cut and then grilled — teriyaki-glazed or salted — in Kyoto cuisine. Said to have taken root in landlocked Kyoto because the hardy fish could be carried in alive, it is also a festival food for Gion Matsuri, nicknamed the 'hamo festival.'
- Kamonasu DengakuKamonasu, a round Kyoto heirloom eggplant over 10cm across sometimes called the 'queen of eggplants,' is sliced and pan-fried in plenty of oil, then topped with a sweet miso reduced with sake and mirin. It is said to have long been grown on the alluvial fan of Kamigamo.