🍱 Omizuke

Yamagata Prefecture maintains a diversity of pickling traditions. "Omizuke" is a pickle made from a type of mustard green called "Yamagata seisai." Along with "seisaizuke," it is one of the representative pickles of Yamagata Prefecture. Seisai greens are said to have been imported from Chongqing, China in 1904, and the seeds were introduced from Nara Prefecture to Yamagata Prefecture in 1908, where they were prototyped at an agricultural experiment station. They found that the quality surpassed that of conventional pickled greens such as bok choy, Chinese cabbage, and rape leaves, and thus the farming of Yamagata seisai was started. ("Kitaguni no Yasai Fudoshi" Takashi Aoba"). Seeds could be collected from the early Taisho period, and cultivation expanded from the Murayama area to the entire prefecture during the Showa period. Yamagata seisai are large vegetables, weighing around 500g each with a length of 70 to 80cm. In "seisaizuke," the thick stems are highly valued, so the leaf tips were often thrown away. The traders from Omi province started to cut off the tips and pickle them, which led to the name "omizuke." (There are many other origin theories for the name, such as that the cut vegetables were rubbed (momi) and pickled, leading to the name "momizuke," which eventually became “omizuke"). In this way, "omizuke" is said to have developed as a clever way to use up leftover vegetables, so not only "Yamagata seisai" but any leftover vegetables can be chopped and pickled to make this dish.