Radish (daikon)

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Radish (daikon, Japan)

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Various, see below
***** Category: Plant

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Explanation

Radish, Reddish, daikon 大根　
Raphanus sativas
Rettich

The long big white radish (daikon 大根) was a winter staple of poor farmers. Even today it is a very popular vegetable. It is cut in small stripes and dried (kiriboshi daikon　切干大根) for later use as a staple.
The skin of gourd was also peeled and dried (kanpyoo 干瓢).

Different varieties of daikon grow at different times of the year and though the cold months usually yield the finest flavor and crispest texture, daikon as a vegetable is at market nearly year-round.

In the Miura Peninnsula, south of Tokyo, a special variety, the Miura Daikon 三浦大根
is grown. I loved to walk through the large fields of this area in winter.
Throughout Japan a kind of radish with a green neck (aokubi daikon 青首大根) is grown as a speciality.
More kigo with radish as a food are given below.

Look at radish from Miura

Look at radish with a green neck

In the Heian period, the slender upper arms of a lady were compared to a radish.
In our modern times, the thick legs of a woman are compared to a radish, daikon ashi　大根足.
. . . CLICK here for daikon ashi leg Photos !


The slender part is used for grating (daikon oroshi 大根おろし), the middle part is used for oden hodgepodge and the part toward the leaves is used for eating raw in salads. Some even eat the leaves, fried in oil.


WASHOKU VEGETABLE SAIJIKI
More kigo with RADISH

Gabi Greve

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kigo for all winter

Drying Radish as winter food.
たつぷりと峡の日抱かせ大根干す

http://www.interone.jp/~touri/garo/garo.htm


daiko hiki daiko hiki だいこ引き（だいこひき）
harvesting radish
. WKD : Winter and Farmers Work with Radish


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Red Radish (hatsuka-daikon 二十日大根）
By LINDA INOKI, The Japan Times, December 7, 2005



After the chrysanthemums,
Apart from radishes,
There is nothing.

By Matsuo Basho (1644-94)

Winter offers few flowers for the poet, but Basho humorously points to the humble daikon, or Japanese White Radish, to evoke the coldness of earth, root and man. However the little hatsuka-daikon is a warm-looking radish, which is well known for its crisp, peppery roots. On the outside, these 3-6 cm roots are beautiful shades of deep red or pink, but on the inside they are pure white.

The plant (Raphanus sativus) is closely related to a widespread wild radish that grows across Europe and Asia and has been cultivated for at least 5,000 years. In fact it is said that poor people in ancient Egypt survived on bread, onions and radishes.

Through selection and natural cross-fertilization, the color of radishes has changed over the centuries from black to white to red. The variety pictured here is a two-toned French breakfast radish. However, there is even a modern hybrid, developed by the Beijing Vegetable Research Centre, which has red flesh instead of the usual white. Its name is singli mei, which means "beautiful heart." Radishes are tough, frost-resistant and grow incredibly quickly. If you plant the seeds in one month you can be eating the roots the next! That explains the Japanese name, which means "20-day daikon."

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fe20051207li.htm

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Daikon... Loh Bak... or Chinese radish
(Raphanus sativus radicola )

Daikon looks like a short thick pipe--beige colored, heavy, sensuous. Sliced and eaten raw, it is fresh, snappy, with a juicy crispness--halfway between a radish and a turnip in texture and bite, and with a good long range between the two.
If you get a green daikon (or a green and white one)--be sure to cook it before eating.
http://www.soupsong.com/fdaikon.html

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Worldwide use

Germany

Rettich. Radieschen.

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Things found on the way


Daruma Daikon ... a new variety
Daruma as a radish
だるま大根　




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Hungry to learn more about Japan?

A TASTE OF CULTURE culinary arts program combines spicy tidbits of food lore with practical tips and skill-building lessons on how to prepare Japanese food. Programs offer a unique opportunity for foreign residents and visitors from overseas to explore and enjoy Japan's culture through its food.

A TASTE OF CULTURE
Elizabeth Andoh

Here is the newsletter of Elizabeth from December 2006:

My 30-something nephew, Shohei, just delivered 2 huge, Miura daikon radishes, their bushy, verdant tops lopped off just below where they had been connected to their firm, bulbous roots. In exchange, he carted away several boxes of nori, both seasoned and plain-toasted, two cans of taraba-gani crabmeat, five 1-liter bottles of cooking oil, several men's linen handkerchiefs, a Chanel necktie, a set of lace-trimmed hand towels, and a package of German-style sausages.

Here in Tokyo, and indeed throughout most of Japan, an easy-to-grow-and-store, cylindrical, all-purpose variety of daikon called aokubi (green-necked) has pretty much taken over the marketplace. Every once in a while, a less than perfectly formed aokubi can be seen at natural food shops, typical split into stumpy "legs." Although these firm radishes can provide fine eating both cooked and raw, they tend to be bland and often a bit woody. Other varieties such as Nerima, karami, Shogoin, or Sakurajima each have distinctive characteristics making them more suitable for some dishes than for others.

Long, slender Nerima daikon are fine when shredded in salads, but most of the crop is air-dried then made into golden yellow takuan pickles by submerging them in nuka (rice bran) paste for several months. Karami daikon is best grated, with or without a drizzle of soy sauce, and gives quite a kick to whatever food it is eaten with. Globe-shaped Shogoin daikon is wonderful thinly sliced in salads or cut in wedges and braised. Huge, bulbous Sakurajima daikon is most-often sliced into thin circles and pickled. And, a nearly 65-pound, Sakurajima daikon is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest radish in the world!

My personal favorite, though, is Miura daikon, yet another regional variety. Grown primarily on the Miura Peninsula southwest of Tokyo, it is sweet-and-spicy and crisp-and-juicy when shredded (though it can get a bit watery when grated). Miura is especially flavorful when steamed and sauced with pungent miso, or soy-simmered with buri (yellowtail, buri daikon 鰤大根) or slow-stewed with fish sausages in oden. Even the peels of Miura daikon are tasty, especially stir-fried.

Ready now for a bit of anthropomorphic fun? In 1999, the toy company Takara Tomy created an animated character based on a straight-laced, split-legged radish called Aokubi daikon, and less than year later, added a fun-loving, sake-and-shochu-guzzling radish called Sakurajima daikon to what became a series of veggie-based characters.

Check out their website:
http://www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/aokubidaikon/index.html

As you place your computer cursor over a tuft of daikon greens, the root pops up. Click on the 3rd tuft from the left for an animated cartoon.

For yet more bizarre fun, click here, and scroll down to where vertical banners decorate a stage. Choose the 3rd from the left, and click on the TV screen for a series of ridiculous tanka poems:
http://www.e-revolution.co.jp/zakka/daikon/index.html

When you are ready for some serious daikon cooking and eating pleasure, take a look at my updated Seasonal Japanese Kitchen page at http://www.tasteofculture.com/ ; I include links to images of several varieties of radish, and recipes for a multi-course feast.

Seasonal Pleasures: DAIKON

Thanks, Elizabeth, for your delicious newsletter !


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Vegetables entering Nirvana
By Ito Jakuchu



伊藤若冲の『野菜涅槃図』
Itoo Jakuchuu (1716 - 1800)

In the Zen sect, Buddha is sometimes represented as a large radish.
This is a nehanzu of Shakyamuni.


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HAIKU

Look at a great page with radish haiga and haiku from the
WHC First Global Haiku Tournament 2002

Pointed Radishes
http://www.worldhaikuclub.org/pages/whcght_radishes/pointed_radishes.htm

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A samurai party--
pungent as daikon radish
their conversation!

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
http://www.soupsong.com/fdaikon.html

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daikon hiki daikon de michi o oshie keri

with a just-yanked
radish
pointing the way

Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)
translated by David Lanoue
http://www.worldhaikuclub.org/pages/whcght_radishes/pointed_radishes.htm


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dinner time -
the silence of monks
munching takuan



夕飯や 静かにたくあん 噛む坊主

yuhan ya shizuka ni takuan kamu boozu
(Tr. and haiga : Nakamura Sakuo)

Gabi Greve, 2005
(for takuan, see below)

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a daikon for the snowman's nose -- rather pale

"chibi" (pen-name for Dennis M. Holmes)

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Related words

Kigo for All Winter

***** pickled leaves of radish, kukizuke 茎漬


***** pickled radish, takuanzuke 沢庵漬
..... Takuan was a famous Zen Priest, who invented this dish. It is very popular. Zen monks are supposed to eat their slices of Takuan radish without making any noise. There are usually two slices on the plate, used to carefully clear out the bolws afer eating and then munching the Takuan in silence.
If you want to know the secret of eating Takuan in silence, contact me :o) !

The Unfettered Mind. by Takuan Soho


***** boiled radish, furofuki 風呂吹

***** to pickle radish, daikon tsukeru 大根漬ける

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Kigo for Early Winter

***** to dry radish, daikon hosu, daiko hosu 大根干す

***** dried radish, hoshidaikon 干大根

***** cut and dried radish, kiriboshi 切干


A speciality from Saikai town, 西海市 Nagasaki
yudeboshi daikon ゆで干し大根
cooked, dried radish stripes


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Kigo for Late Spring

***** radish flowers, daikon no hana　大根の花
..... of a bright blue-purple color, a great view in spring beside the yellow rape flowers. They grow almost like weed once they have taken to a place.


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***** daikon maku 大根蒔く (だいこんまく)sowing radish seeds
kigo for early autumn


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***** Gutsy Radish (dokonjoo daikon) Japan.
kigo for all Winter.


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WASHOKU VEGETABLE SAIJIKI
kigo with TURNIP 蕪 kabu


Back to the Worldkigo Index
http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/

WASHOKU ... Japanese Food SAIJIKI

TAKUAN ... pickled radish from Gunma prefecture

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