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Edible Wild Plants in Japanese Culture and Cuisine: A Look at the Japanese Horse Chestnut

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Winifred Bird
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Abstract

Edible wild plants occupy an important place in Japanese culture and cuisine. They symbolize the seasons, motivate conservation of nature, and in the past provided an escape from starvation. Focusing on wild plants offers a different perspective on Japanese relationships with the land than does agriculture. The nuts of the wild Japanese horse chestnut tree (Aesculus turbinata, tochino-ki) were especially vital to mountain-dwelling Japanese from the Jomon period (14,000-300 BCE) through the mid-twentieth century, both as a famine food and a celebratory one. This article, excerpted and adapted from the book Eating Wild Japan: Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods, with a Guide to Plants and Recipes, describes the changing uses and meanings of this traditional food.

Keywords

wild plantshorse chestnutfaminefarmer-foragerJapanJomon
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 19 , Issue 6 , March 2021 , e4
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2021

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References

Notes

1 Nagayama Hisao. Wa no shoku zenshi [A complete history of Japanese food]. Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2017, pp. 17–18.

2 Barucha, Zareen, and Jules Pretty. “The Roles and Values of Wild Foods in Agricultural Systems.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 365, 2913–2926 (2010).

3 Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. Rice as Self: Japanese Identities through Time. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.

4 Henmi Kinzaburo. Taberareru yaso [Edible wild plants]. Osaka: Hoikusha, 1967, pp. 115–116.

5 The account is in Miyamoto's chapter “Nihonjin no shushoku” [Staple foods of the Japanese] in the book Nihon no shokuji bunka [The food culture of Japan], Naomichi Ishige and Isao Kumakura, eds. (Tokyo: Rural Culture Association Japan, 1999). pp. 63–65.

6 Taniguchi Shingo, and Wada Ryozo, Tochi no ki no shizenshi to tochi no mi no shokubunka [A natural history of the Japanese horse chestnut tree and the food culture of horse chestnuts]. Tokyo: Nihon Shinrin Chosakai, 2007. p. 4.

7 This chapter draws on several articles by Fujioka, Teshirogi, and their colleagues Iida Yoshihiko and Yotsuka Haruna on the social and economic roles of the Japanese horse chestnut. These include, Koki Teshirogi; Fujioka Yuichiro; and Iida Yoshihiko. “Natural and Social Environments in a Large Old-Growth Japanese Horse-Chestnut Forest in Shiga Prefecture, Central Japan.” Geographical Review of Japan Series A 88-5 431–50 (2015);, Koki Teshirogi; Fujioka Yuichiro; and Iida Yoshihiko. “Regional Characteristics of Commodification of Japanese Horse Chestnut Food Products at Roadside Stations in Japan.” Quarterly Journal of Geography 68, no. 2 (2016); and Fujioka Yuichiro; Yatsuka Haruna; and Iida Yoshihiko. “Commodification of Tochi Rice Cakes in Kutsuki, Shiga Prefecture, Central Japan,” Human Geography 67, no. 4 (Jan. 20150, pp. 40–55.

8 Nomoto Kan'ichi. Tochi to mochi: Shoku no minzoku kozo wo saguru [Horse chestnuts and rice cakes: The folklore of food]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2005. pp. 40–41.

9 Frazer, James, The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion. New York: MacMillan, 1894. Chapter 9.1.