🍱 Sengiri Daikon (Kiriboshi Daikon) no Madaka-zuke

“Madaka-zuke” is a traditional pickled food of Miyazaki Prefecture. It is said that the name originated from people voicing complaints at not being able to wait for it to reach peak deliciousness (“mada ka” means “not yet?”). Containing sengiri daikon, roasted soybeans, carrots, squid, konbu, etc., it is a healthy food that is full of ingredients that are good for your body. Miyazaki Prefecture makes up a large part of the nation's "sengiri daikon" production. Note that "sengiri daikon" is the name for it in Kansai and westward, and it is known as ”kiriboshi daikon” in Kanto. It was a representative dried food from the Edo period on; at the time the one produced in Aichi Prefecture (Owari Province) was mainstream. In the Meiji Period, the Kanto area supply was made in Chiba, and for the Kansai area, Nagoya; Miyazaki Prefecture's "sengiri daikon" came to be made widely and commercially available from around 1935. The starting ingredient is "Miyashige daikon", also known as "aokubi daikon". Around 1897, they were transplanted from Aichi Prefecture to Miyazaki Prefecture; the julienning techniques were conveyed at the same time. Miyazaki Prefecture's primary production area is Kunitomo Town, and continues to Tano Town and Kiyotake Town. The amount produced depends on whether it is an abundant or bad harvest, but from 2500 tons to 3,000 tons per year. Every year from late November to February, Kunitomi Town's fields are lined with racks to dry "sengiri daikon"; that sight is also a seasonal marker of winter. Farmers wash their harvested daikon and julienne it, immediately spreading it out onto racks, exposing it to the cold west wind blowing from Kirishima. Pure white daikon transforms into shrunken light brown "sengiri daikon" in half a day to a day from the Kirishima mountain winds and the strong sunlight characteristic of the south of Japan.