I Went Warabi Hunting! 🌱 (Patreon)

Okay, it's really warabi picking, but in Japanese "to hunt something" (with a gun) like wild boar and bears and to "pick something" (with your hands) like apples, strawberries, and maple leaves all use the same kanji: 狩り(gari). I'm a simple person. This never ceases to be funny to me. Like you're hunting strawberries with a gun. 😆

One thing you'll find (and love) about Japan is how everyone is so tuned into the seasons. Older people are at least. Not sure about younger ones. But there are countless little changes that happen from season to season and I love how sensitive everyone is to them.

So the weather is warming up and evidently it's warabi season. Warabi being a wild edible plant (the unopened head of the bracken fern). I knew what it was and that there is a thing called sansai (山菜) mountain vegetables, that you'll find in everything from soba to onigiri-rice balls to tempura.

My first year at university here, I ate a lot of sansai soba. Looks like this.

I've made it myself over the years a lot, too, but always from a package like this:

You just rinse it of and put it in your rice cooker with your rice, or warm it up and put on top of your noodles.

So when my Japanese friend messaged me that she was going warabi-gari and did I want to come, I said YES!

So , interestingly, the secret place she goes to every year is on the sight of an old castle from the Sengoku Era. It was called the Suwahara Castle and no longer stands. But they have this adorable diorama made by a bunch of high school boys.

You know how you know it was made by high school boys?

Look closely. They made Otani Shohei into one of the samurai. So cute.

Very quickly for history buffs: Takeda Shingon's son, Katsuyori (not quite so amazing as his dad), constructed the castle to help defeat Tokugawa Ieyasu (Shizuoka is karayzeee about Ieyasu. He's our guy!). Katsuyori was promptly defeated and Ieyasu snapped up the castle and renamed it Makino Castle. It was eventually abandoned. Who abandons a castle?

Back to wild weeds! This is what the area looked like. There were a few aunties and grandma's picking and they were really filling their bags.

Very interesting. It's called "getting the warabi eye" (warabi no me ni natta). At first you can't see them at all, then after and hour...they're ALL YOU SEE. You have to really focus. You don't want to crush any of the very young sprouts. Like below. Those will be big enough to pick in a day or two, so you leave those for the next batch of pickers or hunters as the case may be.

You want them to look like this.

But it was hard because everyone seemed to know about the secret spot and there weren't a lot of big ones, at least not that day.

Mine were small.

I did get quite a bit in the end. This is after washing them. Saved a spider. He's living in my monstera plant now. Seems happy.

Important: You can't just eat them either! Traditionally you soaked them overnight in wood ash. These days you can use baking soda and hot water, overnight. It gets rid of the acrid tastes and ... poisons??

I was told you don't want to boil them because they're so delicate, but when you soak them it should be in boiling or very hot water. They really don't have much of a taste. But good for you, I'm told. I'm sure they are.

So I made: This.

This one is pretty traditional. Some kind of fried tofu or satsuma-age, or really...just anything. Since the taste is so mild. I gave some to my friend and I believe she just sautéed them in a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Some recipes just have you doing a light simmer in the ol' soy sauce, mirin, sake, dashi blend.

I also tossed some into a meaty cheesy omelette. I shared this photo with my Japanese friends and they were excited to get the "recipe" and make it themselves. Literally, just a little oyster sauce with the meat, pour in some beaten eggs, salt pepper, cheese, then finally the warabi. To taste!

Okay. Those weren't really real recipes, but I wonder if you can even get warabi elsewhere in the world? Seems like something people would just ignore or think a weed. Not sure about that.

Now, if you're like me, you might be thinking can you make warabi mochi from these?

Mmmm, chewy, delicious, sprinkled with kinako (roasted soybean) powder and then a little kuromitsu (a molasses sweet syrup)...warabi mochi!

The answer would be, no. Sorry. First, it's made with the root, not the sprouts. And second, it takes 10 kilograms of warabi root to get a mere 70 grams of powder. Although, now warabi mochi is made with mostly arrowroot or tapioca. It used to be hugely popular in old Japan (Heian Era) with a certain Emperor Daigo loving the dessert so much he called them the Tayu or Dayu of sweets. Remember a Tayu or Dayu is the very top most courtesan. End on a funny story: My neighbor The Whistling Man whom I've known for over thirty years, but haven't seen for the last twenty, well, I just adore him. He's a hoot. I was really bummed out there was nowhere nice to walk around here like there was near the old house (we had a river), but then I stumbled across a different river and it's even better because it has more trees (mostly cherry) and more little side paths to go adventure down. Yay! So the cherry trees are all blooming and since I've been too busy to do hanami (cherry blossom viewing) with friends or by myself, I decided to just take a walk at the end of the (always very short!) season. I had walked a good forty five minutes, very far from the house, when I see up ahead some old men drinking and carrying on. There were right in the middle of the path, drinking and laughing.

I approach them and joke, bowing and saying, I'm so sorry I'm late, like I was going to join them and I hear: OOOHH! I look up and it's him! He'd walked or ridden his bicycle all the way out there to party with his little old man buddies. He said, had you been a little earlier we'd still have had beer left and you could have joined us. Ha!

I'll leave you with a little bit of magic I took that day. Not my neighbor, but the pretty petal shower and some ducks I like because they make the funniest sounds.

XOXO,

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