Yamaguchi prefecture home cooking: side dishes

<p>Objective: Clarification of the characteristics of side dishes from Yamaguchi Prefecture from the aspect of cooking methods and ingredients.</p><p></p><p>Method: The Yamaguchi editorial committee selected 100 dishes from those collected in interviews conducted between 2012 and 2014 under the project title of “Japanese Home Cooking for the Next Generation” and also from a literature review of papers from the Rural Culture Association of Japan which included “Folk Narrative Recordings of Meals in Yamaguchi”. From those 100 dishes, 44 side dishes were classified and analyzed in this research.</p><p></p><p>Results: Here follows a list of the 44 dishes that were selected: uncooked dishes (konjac sashimi, grated yam), simmered dishes (ichiroku, itokoni, ohira, kencho, nanban-style burdock root, nigomi, noppei, kanpyo, black beans, fiddlehead ferns, onion and potatoes, butterbur stalks, peanuts), fried foods (sweet potato tempura), vinegared dishes (strips of persimmon and turnip, turnip, raw laver seaweed, lotus, dried shrimp and cucumber, spaghetti squash, wakame seaweed), marinated dishes (tail fin of whale, spring onions, strips of lettuce, tsushima, konjac, Shandong Chinese cabbage, wasabi leaves, Chinese cabbage, hijiki, spinach dressed with tofe paste, bamboo shoots, eggplant, vegetable thinnings in sesame dressing), additional dishes (igisu tofu), pickles and soy sauce dishes (sea lettuce, kanzuke radish, butterbur, eggplant pickled in mustard, lightly-pickled eggplant, wasabi leaves, yuzumiso). In terms of cooking style, most of these dishes were simmered, marinated, or vinegared.</p><p>In terms of the ingredients used in the dishes, 14 dishes made use of beans or tofu, 12 dishes made use of root vegetables, 8 dishes included potatoes, and 6 dishes included leaf vegetables. 6 dishes made use of fruit vegetables and 6 used wild vegetables. The dishes included 5 dishes which used types of seaweed, 4 dishes which used mushrooms, 2 which included fruit, 2 which included seafood, 2 which included meat, and 1 dish which used a stalk vegetable. Many of the side dishes made use of seasonal vegetables and dried foods such as beans, dried vegetables and dried seaweed.</p><p>Classification and analysis of these dishes helped to highlight the wealth of farm and marine products available in Yamaguchi Prefecture.</p>