🍚 Hata-gonbo-zushi (Burdock Sushi)

“Hata-gonbo”, is a Burdock, grown in the Nishihata district of Hashimoto City, located halfway up the 552-meter-high Kunishiro Mountain. Its name is derived from "Hata”, in the Nishihata district and "Gombo", in the burdock dialect. It is not a special variety. When Burdocks, are cultivated in the hard red soil on the steep slope, they grow into a round and fat Hata-gonbo”. The particularly large ones are 5 to 10 cm in diameter and as long as 1 meter. In the old days, when harvesting, the farmers used to dig up the sticky soil more than 1 meter deep with a special long trowel and spend 20 to 30 minutes harvesting each seedling one by one. It was so labor-intensive that the neighbors around there used to say, "Don't let your son to get marry the local in Hata (Nishi-Hata). However, because of its size, it is richer in dietary fiber and polyphenols than common burdocks, and it is also softer and more aromatic. Hatagombo is used in a custom called “Zoji-nobori,” in which villages at the foot of Mt. Koya make offerings of rice and vegetables to Mt. Koya. “Zoji-nobori" is said to have continued from the Edo period to the beginning of the Showa period (1926-1989), and then ceased, but a local cooperative has been carrying it out again since 2014.