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Vegetables from Aichi

Karimori kasuzuke (hard white-melon in mirin lees)かりもりの粕漬け

Karimori is a very hard pickling melon of the Nōbi plain. It is halved, seeded and packed with heavy salt under a weight for about two days, wiped dry and coated in mirin lees. After about three weeks it is crisp and ready, and with the lees changed it can age for over a year until tortoiseshell-brown.

Fully documentedVegetables23 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe MAFF recipe for 4 servings, from Aichi's 50 selected local recipes; the prefecture's own page gives the same amounts and 3.6 g salt per 100 g of finished pickle.
Karimori1 kgThick-fleshed ones are best; shirouri also suits this pickle[maff-karimori][aichi-karimori]
Salt200 gPacked into the hollow where the seeds were[maff-karimori][aichi-karimori]
Weight (pressing stone)About 2 kg[maff-karimori]
Mirin lees400 g[maff-karimori][aichi-karimori]
Starterother: mirin or sake lees

Total time across the recorded steps: 23 days

Start
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What changes: The hard melon is split lengthwise and its seeds are scraped out

Step 1 of 4
Halve lengthwise and scrape out the seeds
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
F. fructivorans

Output: two melon halves with an empty hollow.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Karimori is a very hard pickling melon of the Nōbi plain. It is halved, seeded and packed with heavy salt under a weight for about two days, wiped dry and coated in mirin lees. After about three weeks it is crisp and ready, and with the lees changed it can age for over a year until tortoiseshell-brown. Made in 4 steps over 23 days. The longest step, coat with mirin lees and pickle, takes at least 21 days (Ministry of Agriculture 2026). Salt is 20 % (Ministry of Agriculture 2026). In narazuke, the related sake-lees pickle, the lactic acid bacterium Fructilactobacillus fructivorans, which made up over 90 % of the prokaryotic community in early in-process pickle and 70 % in final products does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 21 daysReported[maff-karimori][aichi-karimori]Coat with mirin lees and pickle
Salt20 %Reported[maff-karimori]Fill with salt and press in a tub

What makes this one different

Karimori kasuzuke is a short version of the Nara-zuke style of lees pickle, using local mirin lees and a melon so hard it is hardly eaten any other way. Moriguchi-zuke uses the same lees method on long Moriguchi daikon.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Long-salted home methodHome-grown karimori picked in June–July is salted for half a year before going into the lees, and the jar is sealed tight.
  • Aged karimoriLees changed again and again for over a year, until the melon is tortoiseshell-brown.

Safety

The MAFF recipe keeps the lees-coated melon in the refrigerator.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Karimori and early karimori have been grown on the Nōbi plain since the Meiji period and are listed as Aichi traditional vegetables. The prefecture's list says the melon has long been grown in the Owari area, that its origin is unknown, and that it was pickled in lees together with Moriguchi daikon. The Chita peninsula once had over 200 sake breweries, and their lees are thought to explain the pickle. The name is said to mean crunchy (kari) and eating plenty of rice (mori-mori).

  1. [maff-karimori] Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), Uchi no kyōdo ryōri (Our regional cuisines), かりもりの粕漬け (Aichi); recipe from Aichi no kyōdo ryōri reshipi 50-sen, read 2026-10gov
  2. [aichi-karimori] Aichi Prefecture, Shokuiku net, Aichi no kyōdo ryōri, かりもりの粕漬け (recipe 031), read 2026-10gov
  3. [aichi-dentoyasai] Aichi Prefecture, Horticulture Division, Aichi no dentō yasai (Aichi traditional vegetables), かりもり(堅瓜)gov
  4. [yoshioka2025] Yoshioka M., Akasaka N., Masuda Y., Mori M., Watanabe D. 2025, Ethanolphilic lactic acid bacterium Fructilactobacillus fructivorans as the key microorganism for fermentation of narazuke, a traditional Japanese preserved food, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 91(12):e01730-25, doi:10.1128/aem.01730-25 (about narazuke, the related sake-lees pickle)paper