Regional food and famous sweets of Nagano

Gohei mochi partially crushes cooked non-glutinous rice, shapes it around a skewer, coats it with a miso- or soy-based sauce containing walnuts...

Romen combines firm steamed Chinese noodles with mutton, cabbage and often wood-ear mushroom. Ina restaurants serve both broth-rich and sauce-fried...

Sunki-zuke ferments the leaves and stems of Kiso red-turnip varieties without salt, using sound previous sunki, its liquid or a prepared starter. The...

Komagane sauce katsudon layers raw shredded cabbage over rice and tops it with freshly fried pork cutlet dipped in a sweet, savory house sauce. Unlike...

M

Hachinoko are edible bee larvae and pupae, especially black hornet in mountain regions, cooked as sweet-soy tsukudani or with rice. The culture...

Koori soba forms boiled noodles into small nests, freezes them in the severe winter cold around Kashiwabara and dries them over time. The light dry...

Oyaki encloses cooked nozawana greens, dried daikon, miso eggplant, pumpkin, mushrooms, beans or other fillings in a wrapper made from wheat...

Nagano shio-ika sunomono rehydrates and desalts preserved squid, briefly heats it as directed, then dresses it with cucumber, wakame and sweet...

Raicho no Sato is Tanakaya's Omachi souvenir: a long rectangular sandwich of crisp, thin European-style senbei layers and mellow cream, balancing...

Oshibori udon grates a pungent local daikon such as nezumi daikon, presses it through cloth and dissolves Shinshu miso in the raw juice. The pressed...

Koi-koku simmers thick cross-sections of carp with skin, bones and sometimes head or offal in miso for a deeply savory soup. Around Saku...

Nozawana-zuke pickles the long stalks and leaves of Nozawana, a signature Nagano green. Bright, crisp shallow pickles contrast with amber, sour...

Shinshu sanzoku-yaki marinates a large intact chicken thigh or breast in garlic-soy seasoning, coats it with starch and deep-fries it. Despite yaki in...

S

Tenyose sets eggs, somen, beans, fruit or vegetables in sweetened agar or seasoned dashi. Suwa households make both dessert and savory forms.

T