Rooted Palate #2: Preparing pickles for the New Years
Introduction
It has been two years since I left Bungotakada and my lifestyle running a Direct sales shop, and I get waves of nostalgia as we enter November. The main reason behind that is because we have entered the Osechi season.
During this time at Yumemusubi, we are knee-deep in preparing dishes for the Osechi set (will explain more about what it is in the next section) that we send out at the end of the year. It is a high adrenaline, high rewards atmosphere where a group of women gather for a united goal.
To make over 5000 packets of 15–20 different dishes to feed over 400 households… and of course to share the bounty of food that we can locally source in Bungotakada.
As any busy time of the year, this was a time of camaraderie over tea breaks and meeting the scheduled timeline, but also a time for great innovation. We sow the seeds for great ideas to life, using some of the scrap ingredients that are left over as part of the production process.
One such recipe that we developed almost 4 years ago was the Turmeric- lotus root pickle. After my return from visiting India, I had bought a kilo of turmeric powder to our humble kitchen. We had been looking for innovative ways to use turmeric into our food, but nothing really hit the jackpot. Until we had some leftover lotus root to experiment with.
Turmeric is not conventionally used in the Japanese kitchen, and my collaborators, Tomyo-san and Chiemi-san are key experimentalists. They were bold enough to try mixing cultures and flavors to push the boundaries of what our relatively traditional Osechi set can offer. Which resulted in the “Curry flavored pickled Lotus root”
So here is that recipe that evolved out of happenstance. Enjoy!
Recipe: Curry-flavored pickled lotus root
Cooking time
10–15mins
Ingredients
- Lotus root
- sugar
- salt
- rice vinegar
- water
- turmeric powder, cumin, curry powder
- sliced chili (optional)
Recipe
Making the vinegar base
- Mix salt, and sugar into the rice vinegar and adjust the taste to your liking
- add a tiny portion of turmeric powder to give it a yellow tinge
- You can also mix in dry chili slices for an optional punch to the flavor.
- Adjust ingredients to get the taste of your liking.
Mixing the ingredients
- Cut the lotus root into thin slices. It is optional to cut around the holes to make it look like a flower
- Add the vinegar base
Rooted in… Tradition
What is Osechi?
New Year's is an auspicious time for all, and in Japan, it is traditionally celebrated quietly with the family. With the great “Kou-haku Uta gassenn” The Red vs White Song battle runs in the background like soothing background music, while everyone gathers around the dining table picking at a box full of Osechi food.
Osechi is a traditional meal that is served for New years eve jam-packed with symbolic/ auspicious food to set the right tone for the upcoming year. The idea behind it is if you are able to end the year consuming these symbolic dishes, you will start the year on a positive and auspicious note.
In classic Japanese style, these symbolic food comes with wordplay and associations that are uniquely Japanese.
So what is the significance of a Lotus root?
Lotus root is known for its holes. From a symbolic standpoint, these holes represent ”見通し” or foresight into the future since you can look through the holes. You consume the lotus root with the hope that you will have enough foresight for a prosperous year.
That is why the lotus root is included in numerous dishes as part of the Osechi. Some dishes include:
- Chikuzen-ni: A dish made of braised vegetables and chicken, generally consumed during the new year. It contains, shiitake mushrooms, burdock root, chicken, and lotus root.
- Braised root vegetables with soba seeds: Another innovation from the BAFF kitchen that uses soba seeds with seasonal root vegetables like burdock and lotus root.
Sidenote
The Lotus root is harvested anywhere between September to November depending on when it is planted. In Bungotakada, Mr Onishi is the one making the lotus root and does so in a completely organic pesticide-free manner. We use his lotus root to make all of our dishes containing lotus root.
Locally sourced: Lotus root is another auspicious food that is harvested anywhere between September to November depending on when it is planted. In Bungotakada, Mr Onishi is the one making the lotus root and does so in a completely organic pesticide-free manner. We use his lotus root to make not only this pickled dish but also chikuzen-ni (another dish on the Osechi menu).
Osechi form Bungotakada
During my time in Bungotakada, I was part of an amazing team that made this Osechi by hand. The whole process from reorganizing the menu to cooking and sending the produce off in time for New Year's took about a full year to design and implement. And every year we would make about 400 sets with anywhere from 16 to 20 items in each set.
The Osechi project is run by the Bungotakada Agriculture Forestry and Fishery Network. It is an organization of farmers and people interested in revitalizing the food system in the Bungotakada area. This project has been running for the past 10 years involving over 15 different farming households, in 3 different regions of Bungotakada.
So what can we learn from this journey into recipe development?
- Even though you are dealing with something as traditional as a New Year meal, it is fun to experiment with the flavors.
- This recipe is not a sustainable one since the turmeric comes all the way from India, but turmeric can be grown on Japanese soil. This expands the potential for what can be grown in the local environment.
- Through this Osechi project, you can clearly see how local farming communities are involved in developing the recipes through an open dialogue.
If you are interested in trying out some homemade Osechi, you can get it directly from this website! They are still accepting orders until December 15th! You can access the online shop on this page → https://foundingbase.shop/
