Japanese Autumn Foods: Sanma, Kuri, Matsutake and More

Shokuyoku no aki and the idea of shun

Japanese gives autumn several titles: the autumn of reading, the autumn of sport, the autumn of art. The favourite is shokuyoku no aki, the autumn of appetite. The heat is over, the rice has been harvested, and fish, nuts, mushrooms and fruit all arrive together.

The key word is shun (旬), the peak season of a food. Advertising sums up the whole season as aki no mikaku (秋の味覚), the tastes of autumn, and you will see that phrase on posters from September.

Sanma: the autumn sword fish

Sanma is written 秋刀魚: autumn, sword, fish. It is long, slim and silver, and autumn is when it is fattest. The classic dish is sanma no shioyaki, a whole fish salted and grilled, served with a mound of grated daikon and a wedge of citrus. You add a little soy sauce to the daikon and eat it with the fish.

Catches have been poor in recent years, and the price of sanma is a regular topic on the autumn news. The other fish of the season is akizake (秋鮭), salmon caught in autumn as it returns to the rivers.

From the hills: kuri, matsutake and kinoko

Kuri (栗) are chestnuts. At home they go into kurigohan, rice cooked with whole chestnuts. In cafés they become the Mont Blanc, monburan, a cake topped with strands of chestnut cream, and autumn menus are full of chestnut sweets.

Matsutake (松茸) is the luxury of the season, a mushroom prized for its scent, and Japanese-grown ones are very expensive. It is served simply, in rice or in dobinmushi, a clear soup steamed in a small teapot. A well-known saying compares it with a cheaper mushroom: for aroma, matsutake; for taste, shimeji. Kinoko (きのこ) is the general word for mushrooms, and shiitake, maitake and shimeji all peak in autumn.

Sweet potato season and the yakiimo truck

The sweet potato is satsumaimo (さつまいも), named after Satsuma, the old name for the Kagoshima area. Roasted whole it is yakiimo (焼き芋), and roasted on hot stones it is ishiyakiimo (石焼き芋). On cold evenings a small truck drives slowly through residential streets playing a long, sung call of ishiyakiimo, and people come out with coins. Supermarkets and convenience stores now keep a heated case of yakiimo near the door as well.

Two texture words appear on the labels. Hokuhoku is hot, soft and floury. Nettori is dense, moist and very sweet. Choose by the word, not by the look.

Fruit, pumpkin and the new rice

Kaki (柿), the persimmon, is the fruit of late autumn, eaten crisp or dried as hoshigaki. Be careful on menus: the oyster is also kaki (牡蠣), written with different kanji and said with a different pitch. Kaki furai is fried oysters, not fruit. Nashi (梨) is the round, crisp Japanese pear, and kabocha (かぼちゃ) is a sweet, dense pumpkin that is simmered or fried as tempura.

Shinmai (新米) is the new rice, this year's harvest, sold from autumn with a sticker that says so. It is softer and more fragrant than older rice. The same word means a newcomer at work, so shinmai desu can also mean I'm new here.

Reading seasonal labels on menus and shelves

Gentei (限定) means limited, and the word in front tells you how. Cafés, bakeries and convenience stores bring out chestnut, sweet potato and pumpkin flavours every autumn under these labels, and they vanish when the season ends.

Saying what is in season and ordering it

The pattern a season plus to ieba, speaking of, is how Japanese people open any conversation about seasonal things, and desu ne at the end invites agreement. Shokuyoku no aki desu kara is the standard smiling excuse for a second helping.