Seasonings of Niigata

Niigata's flavors are built from rice and snow

Talk about Niigata's seasonings has to start with rice and snow. This is one of Japan's leading rice regions, and koji culture always grows where rice does. Miso, shoyu and sake breweries remain across the prefecture, and in Numattari in Niigata City in particular they once stood side by side.

Echigo miso is a red rice miso made with a generous proportion of rice koji. Its character is said to lie in a build called ukikoji, in which koji with the grains still intact goes into the mash as it is, so the sweetness and aroma of rice koji ride on top of a flavor that leans dry. To keep the umami of the beans from escaping, some breweries steam the soybeans rather than boiling them before brewing, and that density of umami reads directly in the red color.

Then there is snow. In Myoko, the work of yukisarashi, spreading salted chili on the snow to draw off harshness, still goes on. The long winter has been used as time for fermentation to advance slowly.

Numattari and Myoko, where brewing in Niigata began

Numattari in Niigata City is low, wet ground between the Shinano and Agano rivers, and because good water and harbor access were easy to come by, brewing is said to have concentrated there in the Edo period. Miso, shoyu and sake breweries still stand close together, and the municipality itself presents this history under the phrase Numattari, town of fermentation and brewing.

The origin of kanzuri has never been settled on a single account. One story handed down in Myoko has Uesugi Kenshin using chili in the Warring States period to keep his troops' morale up, while another holds that the original form came from taking chili introduced by way of Portuguese ships and adapting it into something fermented to suit life in snow country. The process of spreading salted chili on snow to draw off harshness, then combining it with koji, yuzu and salt and leaving it three years, continues today in nearly the same steps.

Local dishes and their seasonings

Noppe (のっぺ)

A soup built around taro, simmered together with salmon or chicken, scallop and vegetables. It is seasoned with shoyu and salt, and the body from the taro ties the whole thing together. Ingredients change by district and household, and it has come down as a dish that cannot be left off the table at New Year and at festivals.

Hegisoba (へぎそば)

The soba of Ojiya and Tokamachi, bound with funori seaweed. It has a distinctly smooth mouthfeel and is eaten with a shoyu-based dipping sauce. Funori, used in the local textile industry, is said to have been carried over into soba making.

Sake no sakebitashi (鮭の酒びたし)

A preserved food handed down in Murakami. Salmon that has been salted and dried a long time in cold wind is shaved thin and steeped in sake before eating. Made with nothing but salt and time, it is the dish that best represents Murakami's salmon culture.

Makers in Niigata

• Kanzuri (Myoko)
  The maker of Myoko's hot seasoning, in which salted chili is spread on snow, combined with koji, yuzu and salt, and fermented for three years. Built around its three-year aging, it spread nationwide as a condiment for hot pot.
• Minemura JozoFounded in 1905
  A brewery still making miso in Numattari, Niigata City. Its revived Echigo Miso Classic is a red miso brewed the way it was at founding, with the soybeans steamed rather than boiled, and its density comes from sealing in the umami of the beans.