🍱 Yude rakkasei (boiled peanuts)

Yude-rakkasei is peanuts boiled in their shells in salted water. The first peanut cultivated in Japan was in Kanagawa Prefecture. In the early Meiji period (1868-1912), farmers in Oiso began cultivating peanuts after acquiring them in Yokohama during Japan's opening to the outside world. As Mt. Fuji's volcanic ash piled up in the Hadano Basin, the soil was suitable for peanut cultivation. Since the Meiji Era, peanut cultivation has flourished as a rotation crop for leaf tobacco farmers. After much research and improvement, the Soshu peanut of Hadano and neighboring areas has become famous throughout Japan as a specialty product with a rich flavor. Boiled peanuts were originally immature peanuts that were not ready for sale. Those immature peanuts were boiled in salt, and farmers ate them as a snack. In 1989, a local agricultural cooperative, which was aware of this food culture, commercialized frozen boiled peanuts as Udepi, making them easily available to people. It is now widely popular as a local specialty.