An inland city in the hills of eastern Hyogo, roughly midway between the Seto Inland Sea and the Sea of Japan. It was formed on November 1, 2004, when six towns of Hikami District (Kaibara, Hikami, Aogaki, Kasuga, Sannan and Ichijima) merged. It is a separate city from Tamba-Sasayama, also in Hyogo. The village where I stayed and the soba restaurant where I sheltered from the rain are both within the city.
Sources: ja.wikipedia.org
This moment in the journey
A summer day of rain from the morning
One summer day, with rain falling from the morning. I had borrowed a farmhouse about a hundred years old in a mountain village in Tamba, Hyogo. Low clouds hung on the hills, and rain dimpled the flooded rice fields.
Sliding open the shoji, I looked out on the garden and the green of the mountains. Hydrangeas were blooming around the house, their wet blossoms shining blue and pink. I decided to make a Japanese sweet that would make this rainy hydrangea day even more enjoyable.
Watch this scene on YouTube0:21
More notes from this journey
Tamba, Hyogo
Kingyoku hydrangea
Kingyoku (kingyokukan) is a Japanese sweet made by dissolving agar, adding sugar or starch syrup, and letting it set; its translucence is used to suggest water…
From: Hydrangea season in an old house in Tamba
Tamba, Hyogo
Botan nabe of Tamba
Thinly sliced wild boar is arranged like a peony (botan) flower and simmered with vegetables in a miso broth.
From: Hydrangea season in an old house in Tamba
Tamba, Hyogo
Tamba black soybeans
A large black soybean grown in the Tamba region since old times.
From: Hydrangea season in an old house in Tamba
Tamba, Hyogo
Sobanchi
A soba restaurant in an old house, with veranda seats looking out on a garden maple, rice fields and hydrangeas.
From: Hydrangea season in an old house in Tamba
More notes from Kinki
Kyoto City, Kyoto
Kyoto-style ozoni (white miso New Year soup)
Ozoni in and around Kyoto is built on kombu dashi and white miso, with round mochi, taro, carrot and daikon.
From: Making New Year's Eve soba in a Kyoto townhouse
Kyoto City, Kyoto
Osechi (datemaki, red-and-white namasu, decorated kamaboko)
Each osechi dish carries a wish.
From: Making New Year's Eve soba in a Kyoto townhouse
Kyoto City, Kyoto
Toshikoshi soba (nihachi soba)
The custom of eating soba on New Year's Eve is said to have spread among ordinary people in the Edo period.
From: Making New Year's Eve soba in a Kyoto townhouse
Aridagawa, Wakayama
Chestnut rice (kuri gohan)
My first chestnut rice, made with chestnuts I had picked myself.
From: Chestnuts, saury and an autumn feast
Aridagawa, Wakayama
Charcoal-grilled saury with sudachi
Sanma is written 秋刀魚, "autumn sword fish," but that spelling only spread from the Taisho era on; older texts wrote it 青串魚.
From: Chestnuts, saury and an autumn feast
Aridagawa, Wakayama
Wakayama bonito and mandarin carpaccio
In contrast to the lean first bonito of spring, the fish that head south from around September are called modori-gatsuo, returning bonito.
From: Chestnuts, saury and an autumn feast