Japanese traditions: buckwheat as crop and food

A young visitor poses with grindstones used to make buckwheat flour. 

Buckwheat is often found in rocky mountainous areas. The crop spread throughout mountainous Eastern Europe and Asia because buckwheat will sprout without being deeply buried in soil. It can be hand-cast and it will take root in any niche where a bit of soil has found a pocket. Japan is an island nation full of rocky hillsides, so buckwheat was a real boon when it was first introduced.


Farm equipment, even an ox-drawn plow, is dangerous to use on a steep slope, so buckwheat is an ideal crop for inclines as it is rooted shallowly and can easily be pulled up by hand and gathered for threshing and winnowing in another place.

It's not know exactly where buckwheat originated, but we do know that an 8th-century Japanese ruler issued an imperial decree that farmers plant buckwheat to boost food supply in a time of scarcity.

 

Historic site from around the time of the imperial buckwheat decree.

Since the crop had to be well-established enough for the seeds to be available and methods of specialized milling (buckwheat is famous for its tough hulls), we know that Japan has at least 1500 years of tradition when it comes to growing buckwheat and cooking with it. 

Traditional Japanese millstone grinder for buckwheat

"Soba" is the Japanese word for buckwheat, and most of us know it from the noodles available at Asian restaurants.  

 The image above is from a National Public Radio feature on a woman who teaches younger people the methods of traditional soba noodle preparation.

There's a special knife used to cut Japanese noodles. 

This knife design is called an "udon kiri" if it's used to make wheat noodles and a "soba kiri" if one cuts buckwheat noodles with it. As you can see from the pictures on this website, buckwheat noodles are narrower than udon noodles so cutting them thin enough is a challenge and it takes dedication to learn how to do it well. check out this video. 

The internet tells me it's possible to visit Japan and learn how to prepare soba. I'd love to take a vacation and learn from an elder. Here's one travel site with an interesting option.

Learning to use a traditional buckwheat mill

A more modern Japanese tradition is the buckwheat cookie called a soba bouro, boro, or bolo. During the "Nanban" trade period of the 1500s, Portuguese explorers brought this style of cookie to Japan.

Of course, YouTube being what it is, there's a video for how to make your own Japanese buckwheat cookies. 

 


Sources: 

The image of buckwheat growing on a slope came from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/buckwheat-flower-season-ha-giang-vietnam-visa-online-department

The photograph at the top of this page is from the Stone Forest website.