Seasonings of Fukui

Vinegar that rounds out in Wakasa

In Wakasa in Fukui, rice vinegar is still made by still fermentation, brewed in earthenware jars and fermented quietly for three months or more. Vinegar that quick fermentation would finish in a day is instead aged over time, which takes out the sharp sting and rounds off the acidity.

Wakasa is counted as one of the mikettsukuni, the provinces that presented food to the imperial court from ancient times, so this was a place that had to prepare both ingredients for the capital and seasonings worthy of them. The jar as a vessel and the willingness to wait both remain in the character of the vinegar here. In Tsuruga, kuragakoi, resting kombu that has crossed the Sea of Japan inside a storehouse, has been handed down, and a culture of drawing out the umami in dashi took root along with it.

The Saba Kaido and the mikettsukuni

Fish caught in Wakasa Bay was salted, taken over the passes and carried to the capital in Kyoto. That route is called the Saba Kaido, and Wakasa Obama is regarded as one of its starting points. Wakasa, together with Awaji, is counted among the ancient mikettsukuni, and is said to have fed Heijokyo and Heiankyo.

Having to deliver to the capital sharpened this area's handling of salt and its preservation technique. Heshiko, in which fish is cured a long time in salt and rice bran, and vinegar brewed slowly in jars by still fermentation, both sit at the end of that history as a hub of the food supply. Tsuruga became the gateway through which Hokkaido kombu arrived by ship from the Edo into the Meiji era, and it is regarded as the place where the kuragakoi method of wintering kombu in a storehouse was born.

Local dishes and their seasonings

Heshiko (へしこ)

A preserved food of the Wakasa area in which mackerel and other fish are salted, then cured in rice bran for six months to more than a year. Fermentation in salt and bran concentrates the umami. It is eaten lightly grilled with rice, or sliced thin like sashimi.

Echizen oroshi soba (越前おろしそば)

The soba of the Echizen area: cold noodles topped with grated daikon and dressed with dashi shoyu. Sharp karami daikon is often used, so the aroma of the buckwheat and the heat of the radish become the dish themselves.

Saba no narezushi (さばのなれずし)

A fermented sushi handed down in Wakasa, in which salted mackerel is cured a long time together with rice. It was made as a winter preserved food.

Makers in Fukui

• Tobaya SutenFounded in the Hoei era (1704-1711)
  A vinegar maker in Wakasa Obama. Working from Fukui-grown Koshihikari rice and spring water, it keeps making rice vinegar by still fermentation, resting it in jars for three months or more.
• Okui KaiseidoFounded in 1871
  A kombu merchant in Tsuruga. It maintains kuragakoi, resting kombu in a storehouse under straw mats, and from the middle Meiji era became a purveyor to Eiheiji, the head temple of the Soto school of Zen.