Pickled nozawana was one of the few things that I'd been craving for since I moved to Chicago. It's very difficult to find a fresh one, since the pickle turns sour pretty quickly and (not surprisingly) it doesn't seem to be produced in the U.S. So, I was literary elated when I found a bag of fresh-looking pickled nozawana at H Mart yesterday. It'd been more than four years since I had my last ration of this wonderful pickle.
As you can see in the photograph, fresh pickled nozawana has this beautiful, deep but vibrant green hue. When it turns sour, the green becomes dull and an unconcealable tinge of brown sets in. Not that there aren't people who prefer aged nozawana that's turned sour (quite a few Japanese people do, in fact), but I'm just not big on that sour taste in aged pickles in general.
Nozawana is a crunchy, leaf vegetable that belongs to the turnip family. For something in the turnip family, it grows rather big: a fully grown nozawana can reach three feet. Preferring chilly and misty climate of the highland, nozawana is a specialty of the village of Nozawa, and grown in the surrounding Shin-etsu region. Although I did come across a few American seed companies (such as the Kitazawa Seed Co. in California) that distributes nozawana seeds, I've never seen one being sold fresh anywhere around Chicago.
Nozawana has a distinctive flavor that's difficult to describe. (Well, well, this shows my limitation...) The closest vegetable I've had in the U.S. is the generically called "potherb" stir-fried with shredded pork, served at the Lao Szechuan (a surprisingly stylish website they have!). Whatever they're calling "potherb" has a different texture from nozawana--the one at Lao Szechuan seems denser and less crunchy, but the flavors are very close. Strange for a vegetable, both nozawana and the "potherb" have a hint of meaty umami. My amateur's guess is that they have some amino acids that produce this complex, meat-like flavor.
Guessing aside, nozawana is just really tasty. If you find one on a restaurant's menu or in a Japanese grocer's fridge, grab and try it. I'd planned an American-style dinner for yesterday, but the nozawana changed it all: I had to have rice, with the nozawana, so I did. Ah, I could have eaten the whole bag in one sitting, with maybe three bowls of rice! I didn't need anything else (although I did behave myself and had a balanced meal). I hope Patrick wasn't too taken aback by my uncharacteristically ferocious defense when he tried to snatch the last piece of nozawana--I just had to have that one, too. It's mine. It's all mine...
My happiest day would be when one of the area farmers start growing nozawana and sell them in farmers' markets...
Hurray for nozawana! Din-din for Sep. 5
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