Seasonings of Gunma

Why the miso sauce of Gunma is sweet

The miso sauce brushed onto yakimanju is said to be a sweet-salty sauce of white miso combined with coarse sugar or starch syrup. Searing plain wheat buns over charcoal and coating them in this sweet miso sauce was everyday eating around Maebashi and Isesaki. Precisely because flour came close to being a staple here, people wanted a seasoning rich and sweet enough to eat on its own.

As for shoyu, Oka Naosaburo Shoten in Omama, Midori City, still has roughly 60 kioke (wooden barrels) lined up. Shoyu brewed in kioke is said to account for only about 1% of the industry, and this brewery is said to use organic domestic soybeans and wheat to brew a koikuchi (the standard dark shoyu) aged for over a year. A koikuchi whose aroma lifts with heat, and a sweet miso sauce you put on as is. These two seasonings have carried the Gunma table, where flour, potatoes and konnyaku take the lead.

1787, when a shoyu brewery went up in Omama

Talk about the history of shoyu in Gunma and the first name that comes up is Oka Naosaburo Shoten. Founded in 1787, it began making shoyu in Omama at the foot of Mt. Akagi, in what is now Midori City, under the trade name Nihon-ichi. For over 230 years it has continued tennen jozo (naturally brewed, no temperature control) in kioke, and it is said to keep about 60 of them in active use, at a time when kioke are said to account for only about 1% of the industry.

On the miso side, preparations tied to local farming continue. Shimonita negi, grown in the town of Shimonita in the western part of the prefecture, is a leek that turns strongly sweet when heated, and products such as yaki-negi miso came out of grilling it and combining it with miso from Gunma. It is made by Marukyu Bussan in the town of Minakami in the north, and the fact that the ingredient's growing area and the maker's town sit far apart within the prefecture is itself very Gunma.

Local dishes and their seasonings

Yakimanju (焼きまんじゅう)

Plain buns skewered, brushed with a sweet miso sauce and seared over charcoal, a specialty of Maebashi and Isesaki recorded in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries' Uchi no Kyodo Ryori collection. It is said to have originated in late Edo-period Maebashi, and the balance of sweetness and salt in the miso sauce differs from shop to shop.

Okkirikomi (おっきりこみ)

A dish of Gunma and northern Saitama in which wide fresh noodles are simmered together with vegetables, recorded in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries' Uchi no Kyodo Ryori collection. The noodles go into the broth with their dusting flour still on, which thickens it, and it has been made both with miso and with shoyu. It is a way of eating in which broth and noodles become one, fitting for wheat country.

Konnyaku Dengaku (こんにゃくの田楽)

Gunma is said to account for most of the konnyaku potato grown in Japan, and konnyaku is one of the most familiar ingredients in the prefecture. Skewered, seared, and brushed with a kneaded miso mixed with sansho leaf or yuzu, dengaku is a dish where the strength of miso turns a flavorless ingredient into the lead.

Makers in Gunma

• Oka Naosaburo ShotenFounded in 1787
  A shoyu brewery in Omama, Midori City, under the trade name Nihon-ichi. Tennen jozo in kioke is said to account for only about 1% of the industry, and roughly 60 of those uncommon barrels stand in this brewery. They are said to use domestic organic soybeans and wheat to brew a koikuchi aged for over a year.
• Marukyu BussanFounded in 1962
  A food maker in the town of Minakami. They work on preparations that combine local farming with miso, such as yaki-negi miso, made by grilling Shimonita negi, which turns strongly sweet when heated, and combining it with miso from Gunma.