The people of Yamagata Prefecture love sasamaki, a local delicacy only available in early summer, made from glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves.
笹巻き”Sasamaki”
Sasamaki is a specialty that is only available in early summer, made by wrapping glutinous rice in bamboo leaves.
It is generally eaten with green soybean flour, brown sugar syrup, natto, etc.
The most essential ingredient for sasamaki is fresh, seasonal bamboo leaves.
The highly fragrant new bamboo can be harvested for about a month from the end of May to June.
Raw glutinous rice is wrapped in bamboo leaves to prevent spilling, and then parboiled and dried, which allows the aroma of the bamboo to be fully transferred to the rice.
Most sasamaki in Yamagata Prefecture are white.
(White sasamaki are also eaten in southern Akita, southern Miyagi, Niigata, and Aizu, Fukushima.)
However, in the Minami Shonai region, yellow sasamaki is the standard and is typically eaten with brown sugar syrup and kinako.
The rice is soaked in lye water made from ashes from firewood used in the winter, and the components in the lye give it a yellow color and a chewy texture, like jelly.
Sasamaki acts as a kind of preserved food.
However, it hardens over time, so if that happens, it tastes better if you cook it in a frying pan or similar.
It can be seasoned with soy sauce to make it taste like grilled rice balls, or wrapped in nori seaweed to make it taste like isobeyaki.
It has the same roots as chimaki, but retains more of the texture of glutinous rice.
＜Professor Egashira Hiromasa, Faculty of Agriculture, Yamagata University＞
There are various theories, but the yellow sasamaki eaten in Minamishonai, Yamagata, is thought to have its roots in Kumamoto.
It is said to have originated from “akumaki,” which is enjoyed in southern Kumamoto and Kyushu, including Kagoshima.
The wrapping is made of bamboo skin, but the process of boiling glutinous rice in lye is the same as that of Yamagata’s sasamaki.
It is thought that Tadahiro, the son of Kato Kiyomasa, the first lord of the Kumamoto domain, may have brought it to Yamagata when he moved to Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture in 1632.
At the time, there was no Usouchiku (Moso bamboo) in Yamagata, so it is thought that he used bamboo, which was easy to obtain even in snowy regions, instead.
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