🍱 Karashi renkon(lotus root with Japanese mustard)
Kumamoto Prefecture is one of the largest producers of lotus root in Japan. The Ugi region, where new rice paddies were developed during the Tenpou era of the Hosokawa clan, is still the main production area. Karashirenkon is known as a dish associated with the Hosokawa clan. In 1632, Tadatoshi, the first lord of the Hosokawa clan, was sickly and weak from day to day, and a monk at Rahanji Temple, who was concerned about his health, painstakingly searched for something nutritious. He learned from a Japanese-Chinese book that lotus root has blood-enriching properties. He would never eat it. So, he stuffed a mixture of miso and Japanese mustard into the holes of the lotus root, coated it with a batter of flour, fava bean flour, and egg yolk, and deep-fried it in oil. The spiciness of the lotus root was so effective that people began to like it so much that they ate it regularly. The appearance of the sliced lotus root resembled the Hosokawa family's family crest, the Kuyo (Nine Yours) pattern, and Lord Tadatoshi kept the method of making "mustard lotus root" a secret, and the taste was kept out of the public until the Meiji Restoration. This is the reason why "mustard lotus root" is still made only in Kumamoto Prefecture.