Nihon Chomiryo Tabi
Start with these 34 seasonings from Aomori in total
Aomori splits into Tsugaru and Nanbu, with different climates, different dialects, and no single shared taste in food. What they do share is a depth of flavor built to face the cold.
Being a major garlic-growing area gave rise to a culture of grilling sauces. The sauce made in Towada is not limited to grilled meat; people season stir-fries and simmered dishes with it too. In Aomori City there is a habit of eating oden with ginger miso, another way of warming the body.
- An all-purpose "tare" sauce grown out of garlic country
- Ginger miso oden, seasoned to warm the body
Aomori flavors are an answer to the cold
What the seasonings of Aomori have in common is a richness meant to warm you. The prefecture divides into Tsugaru and Nanbu, with different climates and different dialects, but on the point of depth of flavor they agree.
Garlic sits at the center of it. Aomori is one of the top garlic-producing areas in Japan, and that gave rise to the local "tare" sauce culture. The sauce made in Towada is not limited to grilled meat; it seasons stir-fries and simmered dishes as well. The other is ginger. In Aomori City, oden is eaten with a ginger-spiked miso sauce, another way of dealing with the cold.
Where the sauce and the ginger miso began
Towada's Stamina Gen-tare was created in 1965. It came from Kamikita Nosan Kako, a company that started as a wool-processing plant and later turned to making shoyu (soy sauce). The sauce was originally developed so that mutton from the sheep raised locally would taste good. Its distinguishing feature is that it is built on the shoyu they brew themselves, with Aomori garlic and apples added.
Ginger miso oden is said to have started at the black-market food stalls after the war. In midwinter, to warm the passengers crossing to Hokkaido on the Seikan ferry, a stall owner grated ginger into her miso sauce, and that is how it began.
Local dishes and their seasonings
- Shoga Miso Oden (生姜味噌おでん)
- Oden eaten with a miso sauce spiked with grated ginger poured over it. Around Aomori City, this is simply how oden is eaten. The construction is to simmer the ingredients in dashi, then layer the heat of ginger and the sweetness of miso on top afterward.
- Senbei-jiru (せんべい汁)
- A dish of the Nanbu area in which a special Nanbu senbei cracker is simmered in a chicken or fish dashi. Shoyu sets the final flavor, so the seasoning of the broth becomes the outline of the dish itself.
Makers in Aomori
- Kamikita Nosan Kako (KNK)Established in 1952
The maker of Stamina Gen-tare in Towada. They are known for a sauce built on shoyu they brew in-house, using garlic and apples from within the prefecture. - Wadakan
A seasoning maker in Towada. They work in shoyu and ponzu, and have long supplied the home cooking of the Tohoku region. - Kanesa
A miso maker in Aomori City. Reflecting the local ginger miso oden culture, they also sell a miso blended with ginger.
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