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Vegetables from Gotemba and Oyama, Shizuoka, Japan

Mizukakena-zuke水かけ菜の漬物

Mizukakena is a leaf green grown in winter paddies kept warm by Fuji spring water. The washed greens are rubbed with salt, layered under a weight, turned top to bottom the next day and eaten three or four days after salting. It is a short salt pickle; no source read says how far it ferments.

Fully documentedVegetables4 days – 5 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceServes 10, from the recipe in Shizuoka no Okazu (Kaikōsha) on MAFF's regional cuisine site. Recipes vary by area and household.
Mizukakena1 kgA Brassica leaf green grown in winter paddies; washed and kept in bunches with the stem ends together[maff-mizukakena][jawiki-mizukakena]
Salt30–40 g[maff-mizukakena]
Starternone added; the recipe lists only the greens and salt

Total time across the recorded steps: 4 days – 5 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: early-spring mizukakena greens, washed in their bunches

Step 1 of 5
Wash the greens
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: clean bunches of greens.

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

Mizukakena is a leaf green grown in winter paddies kept warm by Fuji spring water. The washed greens are rubbed with salt, layered under a weight, turned top to bottom the next day and eaten three or four days after salting. It is a short salt pickle; no source read says how far it ferments. Made in 5 steps over 4 days – 5 days. The longest step, eat once ready, takes 3–4 days (MAFF うちの郷土料理 (Our Regional Cuisines) 2026). Salt is 3–4 % (MAFF うちの郷土料理 (Our Regional Cuisines) 2026).

Key numbers
Main step3–4 daysReported[maff-mizukakena]Eat once ready
Salt3–4 %Reported[maff-mizukakena]Rub with salt until limp

What makes this one different

Unlike nozawana-zuke, which is kept through the winter and soured, mizukakena-zuke is a short early-spring salt pickle eaten within a few days.

Related ferments

Safety

For lightly salted pickles eaten after a short time (asazuke), Japan's health ministry says there is no heating or fermenting step that fully sterilises the product, so raw leaves are kept at 10 °C or below, washed under running drinking water and disinfected, and the product is kept at 10 °C or below [mhlw-asazuke]. The notice does not name mizukakena-zuke.

History and sources

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

Mizukakena is said to have been grown from seed that the head of Atano, Kitagō village (now Oyama), brought from Echigo (Niigata) in 1886. Women from Echigo, who came with the workers building the Tōkaidō line (now the JR Gotemba line) in the mid-Meiji era, are said to have first pickled it.

  1. [maff-mizukakena] MAFF うちの郷土料理 (Our Regional Cuisines), 水かけ菜の漬物 (Shizuoka), recipe from Shizuoka no Okazu (Kaikōsha), read 2026-10gov
  2. [jawiki-mizukakena] Japanese Wikipedia, 水かけ菜 (growing area, paddy method, use as a pickle), read 2026-10wiki
  3. [shizuoka-mizukakena] Shizuoka Prefecture, Eastern Agriculture and Forestry Office, 地域の特産物(水かけ菜)御殿場市・小山町 (regional specialty page), updated 2023-03-22gov
  4. [sandagdorj2019] Sandagdorj B. et al. 2019, Characterization of Microbiota that Influence Immunomodulatory Effects of Fermented Brassica rapa L., Microbes and Environments 34(2):206–214paper
  5. [mhlw-asazuke] Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan), 漬物の衛生規範の改正等について (notice 食安監発1213第2号, 13 December 2013), sections on 浅漬 handlinggov