🍱 Mizukakena no tsukemono

Gotemba City and Oyama Town are semi-high temperature areas with cold winters and cool summers. In this area, there is an abundance of groundwater from the snowmelt of Mt. Mizukakena" is a traditional vegetable of this area, and is a specialty that can only be enjoyed in early spring from February to March. It is cultivated in winter by making high ridges in the rice paddies and letting the spring water flow through them to keep the fields warm. The name "mizukakena" comes from the Japanese word "mizukake," which means "to pour water over," hence the name "mizukakena. Cultivation is said to have begun in 1887, when the head of a household in Atano, Kitago Village (present-day Oyama Town) brought back seeds from Echigo (Niigata Prefecture). Around the middle of the Meiji period, a woman from Echigo who came to Japan with workers for the construction of the Tokaido Line (present-day JR Gotemba Line) made mizukakegai pickles, which were later widely cultivated and eaten in the Gotemba and Oyama areas.