Delightful vegan instant soup

When you go to department stores in Japan, you may sometimes encounter gourmet fairs held in their event floor. They may be national ones or region-specific ones in which specialties from a certain district or city are sold. The other day, Entetsu Department Store had a national gourmet fair.

There were many long-established shops from all over Japan. Like other countries, each region has its unique food culture. Products in the fair were rare and difficult to get in Hamamatsu if online shops were not available. The floor was full of people who were curious about such foods.

At first, I expected to find some tofu products from Kyoto. But there were other things that attracted my attention. Can you guess what they are?

They are not candies but “hu” or dried wheat gluten. They are made by Fumuroya from Kanazawa in Hokuriku District. Kanazawa is a castle town famous for its rich cultural legacy such as traditional crafts and a beautiful garden Kenrokuen. Fumuroya is an old hu shop with more than 150 years of history. In addition to these, they make also more ordinary types like this. You can see similar ones in supermarkets.

Hu is often cooked with vegetables or put in soup. By using their colorful products, Fumuroya provides many kinds of instant soup. I found that three of them were vegan, flavored with kelp broth instead of bonito flake broth.

I bought all the three kinds. One of them was soup for autumn, and I prepared it according to the instruction by the shop. First, I put an autumn leaf-shaped box and kelp broth powder in the bowl and made a hole on the box.

Then I poured hot water of 150 cc into the bowl. The contents in the box were supposed to be come out of the hole, but they didn’t. So, I cut the box with chopsticks. The soup finally looked like this.

The ingredients in the palm-sized box got this big! They were garland chrysanthemum leaves, chrysanthemum flowers, maitake mushroom, soy milk skin, and autumn leaf-shaped and matsutake mushroom-shaped hu. The soup had a mild taste, but I felt something unknown in it. Maybe it was the taste of chrysanthemum flowers. They are edible and sold in also the vegetable section of supermarkets, but I’m not sure if they are commonly used in home cuisine in Hamamatsu. The little box itself was also made of hu. It was very good after it became soft and elastic in the soup.

The series of this delightful soup may be suitable for a present or special occasions such as birthday and New Year’s Day. Fumuroya has shops not only in Kanazawa but also in Toyama, Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, and Nagoya. I’ll go to Nagoya next month, so I’m thinking of visiting their shop in Takashimaya Department Store. It may be easy to find it, because they surely have this shop curtain with a big letter ふ (hu).