The Japanese love sansai (edible wild plants), literally, mountain vegetables. The first sansai we gather in spring is fukinoto (butterbur sprouts).
Today, we got these fukinoto from my wife's sister. My wife made fuki miso with them, using miso, mirin, and sugar as seasonings.
日本人は山菜（山の野菜）が大好きです。春に最初に採る山菜はふきのとうです。
今日は、妻の姉からこのふきのとうをもらいました。妻は味噌、みりん、砂糖を味付けに使い、ふき味噌を作りました。
Don't confuse fukinoto (young flower stalks of butterbur) with fuki (leaf stalks of butterbur).
ふきのとう（ふきの若い花茎）とふき（ふきの葉柄）を混同しないで下さい。
The bitter taste of fukinoto is something we long for during the winter months.
ふきのとうの苦い味は、冬の期間に待ちわびる味です。
Great post! Do you eat or prepare any other wild vegetables? We have recently moved to Japan and are slowly learning about sansai. They are just amazing.
ReplyDeleteJoanBailey: Besides fukinoto, we eat:
ReplyDeleteWarabi (young sprouts of braken fern)
Kogomi or kogome (fiddleheads of ostrich fern)
Mitsuba akebi (young shoots of three-leaf akebia).
I undersand that the third sansai is not consumed in Nagano, where they are so bitter, but in my snowy region, they are less bitter, and are considered a delicacy.
We like to eat zenmai (young shoots of Japanese royal or Japanese flowering fern), too, but we don't gather them because they require a lot of work (repetitive rubbing and drying) before they become good to eat.
Do you have any recipes for japanese knotweed or itadori (虎杖, イタドリ?). It is growing wild in the rest of the world and a delicious recipe or use for it would great.
ReplyDeletewe also have tsukushi growing wild here in the US.
tama Matsuoka: I simply stir-fried with pork.
ReplyDeleteDescriptions and photos can be found here:
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/64699-sansai/page__view__findpost__p__1188375
It's very cumbersome to prepare tsukushi! You have to remove all the hakama (skirts?) from each stem!
Does this taste good? Can I post the photos on my website meadowsandmore.com/edible meadow??
ReplyDeleteI will also try a jam because I make a lot of jams.
thank you for the advice on tsukushi. no time for too cumbersome recipes!
tama Matsuoka: I'd say yes, but I had removed almost all tartness from the itadori by soaking in water for too long, so I'd suggest tasting it from time to time during soaking to obtain the desired tartness.
ReplyDeletePhotos on your website? Sure you can!
great. I am going to recommend this blog to them on sansai. I read through all your old posts on egullet and liked them a lot also. I will also send to my relatives in Japan (the kansai living/natto hating matsuokas)
ReplyDelete