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Vegetables from Nagano

Nozawana-zuke野沢菜漬

Nozawana turnip greens are picked after the first frosts, washed leaf by leaf and packed in a barrel with salt under a heavy stone. They can be eaten after two or three weeks, but lactic bacteria keep working through the winter, and by spring the leaves are sour, yellow furuzuke that is fried in oil.

Fully documentedVegetables14 days – 30 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceOne 4-to barrel of greens, from a recipe collection of the Saku rural-life meisters on MAFF's regional cuisine site. Recipes vary by region and household.
Nozawana40 kgPickled from 23 November on, once frost has softened it; roots trimmed and soil washed out[maff-nozawana-kr]
Pickling salt1–1.3 kg[maff-nozawana-kr]
Shochu (35 %)360 mlHalf poured round the barrel and half inside the liner bag; it keeps mould away[maff-nozawana-kr]
Cut kombuAbout 160 g[maff-nozawana-kr]
Dried chilliesTo taste (80 in the recipe)[maff-nozawana-kr]
Starterspontaneous (practical manufacturing relies on the lactic bacteria already present, likely from the raw material, not a starter culture; Tomita 2021)

Total time across the recorded steps: 14 days – 30 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: frost-softened nozawana, washed one leaf at a time

Step 1 of 5
Pick after frost and wash leaf by leaf (o-ha arai)
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
L. curvatus
L. plantarum
Levilactobacillus brevis
Lactobacillales

Frost makes the leaves sweet and soft, so picking waits for the cold, from November on. In Nozawa Onsen the leaves were washed in hot-spring water. Output: clean nozawana.

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

Nozawana turnip greens are picked after the first frosts, washed leaf by leaf and packed in a barrel with salt under a heavy stone. They can be eaten after two or three weeks, but lactic bacteria keep working through the winter, and by spring the leaves are sour, yellow furuzuke that is fried in oil. Made in 5 steps over 14 days – 30 days. The longest step, ferment in the winter cold, takes 14–30 days (MAFF うちの郷土料理 (Our Regional Cuisines) 2026) and runs at 10 °C (Sandagdorj B. et al. 2019). Salt is 2.5–3.3 % (MAFF うちの郷土料理 (Our Regional Cuisines) 2026). Latilactobacillus curvatus and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum (40 of 46 isolates) and Levilactobacillus brevis, in the same laboratory fermentation do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step14–30 daysReported[maff-nozawana-kr][maff-nozawana-tf]Ferment in the winter cold
Temperature10 °CReported[sandagdorj2019]Ferment in the winter cold
Salt2.5–3.3 %Reported[maff-nozawana-kr]Layer in a barrel with salt, tread down and weight
AciditypH 4Measured[tomita2021]Ferment in the winter cold

What makes this one different

Nozawana-zuke is a cold winter ferment of a leaf turnip whose root does not grow. Unlike sunki, it is salted. Most nozawana-zuke products today are quick pickles made without fermentation (Tomita 2021).

Related ferments

Variants

  • Other Shinshu o-hazukeInekoki-na, Gensuke kabuna or Kiso-na greens in place of nozawana.
  • Industrial two-step pickleGreens chopped to 2.5 cm, pre-salted in 6 % brine for 2 days at 7 °C, then fermented at 1.5 % salt and 10 °C (Tomita 2021).

Safety

The Saku recipe pours shochu round the barrel and the liner to keep mould away.

History and sources

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

Nozawana is said to have begun when a priest of Kenmei-ji in Nozawa Onsen village brought Tennoji turnips back from Kyoto and planted them in 1756. Nozawana-zuke was selected as an intangible folk "taste cultural property" of Nagano in 1983 (MAFF).

  1. [maff-nozawana-kr] MAFF うちの郷土料理 (Our Regional Cuisines), 野沢菜漬 (Nagano), recipe from the Saku-shi Noson Seikatsu Meister no Kai, read 2026-10gov
  2. [maff-nozawana-tf] MAFF にっぽん伝統食図鑑 (Japanese Traditional Foods), 野沢菜漬け (Nagano), read 2026-10gov
  3. [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
  4. [tomita2021] Tomita S., Watanabe J., Kuribayashi T. et al. 2021, Metabolomic evaluation of different starter culture effects on water-soluble and volatile compound profiles in nozawana pickle fermentation, Food Chemistry (Molecular Sciences) 2, article 100019paper