Various vegan dumplings, goheimochi, and oyaki

Entetsu Department Store near the train station often holds a small gourmet fair in the basement. Their first fair this year was held until today, and I found Kiso-Naraijyuku Kimura (木曽奈良井宿きむら), a shop from Nagano Prefecture.

They were selling several kinds of dumplings neatly displayed. Dumplings made from rice flour are one of the most popular traditional sweets in Japan. Generally, they seem to be vegan, but dumplings in some shops may be flavored with animal products, for example, dried bonito broth in the sauce.

When I asked the ingredients of dumplings, the shop clerk said that all of them didn’t contain any animal products. So, I bought one of each for lunch. They were dumplings with sesame sauce, soy source, soy source + seaweed, mugwort mixed in, and sweet soy sauce.

They were soft and elastic as I had expected. I especially liked the flavors of dumplings with seaweed and mugword. The green color was beautiful.

These five kinds of dumplings might have been enough for lunch. But I had another vegan food that drew my attention at the department store.

They were goheimoch, a specialty in central Japan. Though the shapes and flavors vary depending on regions, they are basically flat cakes of mashed rice skewered and grilled with sauce. As the shop was from Nagano Prefecture, their goheimochi were different from the ones I had seen in Shizuoka Prefecture. I bought one to try. It had three rice cakes on a skewer, and the sauce contained miso, soy sauce, sweet rice wine, sesame, peanuts, walnuts, wild sesame, ginger, etc. It was thick, sweet, and rich. Though the taste was strong, I ate up the sauce because it felt nutritious. It may be interesting to compare ingredients of goheimochi of different regions. I’d like to introduce one made in Hamamatsu some day.

Kiso-Naraijyuku Kimura had also several kinds of oyaki or buns stuffed with vegetables. I bought five kinds yesterday: pumpkin, nozawana or turnip greens, eggplant, sauteed burdock, and dried strips of radish. The shop clerk said that they could be preserved in a refrigerator for a month.

But I had one with nozawana for dinner today. Kiso-Naraijyuku Kimura is not a special shop intended for vegans or vegetarians, but their products are practically vegan. I think there are many shops like this in Japan, reflecting the simple diet of ordinary people in old times.