🍲 Kuromame-ni (Simmered Black Beans)

Black bean from Tamba-Sasayama is considered the highest quality among any black beans because individual beans are bigger than other beans and its sugar content is higher due to clayey and fertile land in the area and big temperature difference between daytime and night. Its characteristics are slightly sweet big bean and hard-to-tear skin. There are some stories about the origin of black bean in Tamba-Sasayama. One of these is that black beans brought from outside into ‘rakuichi rakuza’ (free markets and open guilds) held in Miyata area in Sengoku Era (late 15 ~ late 16th century) took root because the climate there fitted the beans, then they were prevailed around the villages. There is a story that the domain head of Sasayama offered black beans to ‘Shogun’ (= the head of samurai government), he was praised a lot. ‘Kuromame-ni’, simmered sweetened black beans, has been popular as one of the New Year’s dishes, but it is now consumed all the year because black beans contain polyphenols, which is gaining more attention due to recent health fad.