Hyuganatsu is only available in Kyoto for a few weeks in the late winter and early spring and most Japanese have never eaten it. This spring I was inspired to some truly exquisite marmalade with hyuganatsu.

Miyazaki Citrus Hyuganatsu

Renowned Foodies in Kyoto from NYC
Marc from NoRecipes.com, a foodie blogger friend was in Kyoto this week and we finally got a chance to meet in person and ‘foodie’. He brought along Stephane from ZenCanCook.com, Stephane is a real French chef. The night of their arrival we did Japanese beef at Hiro, then sake at Nihonshu Bar Asakura then sumashi ramen at Takaraya. A few days later we did the wholesale food market and Kyoto-style sushi lesson at Kichisen with Chef Tanigawa.

Hyuganatsu Wagashi Omiyage
Marc was in Miyazaki, on Kyushu, before he came up to Kyoto and he kindly brought some omiyage souvenirs for me including Miyazaki’s undisputed meibutsu, the hyuganatsu in the form of a whole candied hyuganatsu filled with hyuganatsu flavored white yokan from a shinise in Miyazaki. It was a foodies dream come true.

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori Box and Wrapping

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori Inner Wrapping

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori

Hyuga-no-Kaori Yokan (七万石 日向のかほり)
There are a number of wagashi confections in Japanese cuisine that use a whole citrus fruit peel as a container for mochi, jelly or yokan flavored with the fruits juice. Some of my favorites are steamed yuzu filled with mochi, a cold season specialty of northern Japan and a bitter summer orange filled with jelly served chilled in the summer.

According to the Japanese Wikipedia article, hyuganatsu citrus (citrus tamurana) 日向夏柑橘 suddenly appeared in the Miyazaki garden of Yasutaro Magata in 1820. He didn’t know what the fruit was but did eat a few every winter but they were too sour for his taste. One summer a carpenter named Chibei Takazuma who was repairing Magata’s thatched roof helped himself to one of the mysterious fruit that was just left on the tree and he thought that it tasted pretty good. He took home a branch and grafted it onto a tree in his garden. From there cultivation of the fruit spread and by 1887 the name ‘hyuganatsu’ was in common use. It is thought that the hyuganatsu is a mutation of the yuzu citrus fruit.

Nanaman Goku (七万石) is a shinise in Miyazaki that developed this delightful confection in 1873. The confection is called Hyuga-no-Kaori which literally means the ‘fragrance of hyuga’. Development required 4 years of endeavor. To make it the flesh of the fruit is removed and juiced and used to flavor yokan jelly. The peel is candied and filled with yokan. The whole citrus fruit being candied makes this one rather unique, I think.

To serve, the confection is sliced into wedges reminiscent of the fruit wedges themselves.

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Slicing

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Sliced

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Sliced and Served

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Served

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - detail

How did Hyuga-no-Kaori Yokan taste?
Nanaman Goko says that they make this confection all year and with the seasons the taste changes quite a bit. I am a fiend for hyuganatsu so I was very excited to try this. It is absolutely beautiful and I felt that the packaging is certainly of a bygone and more pure era, like a Norman Rockwell painting. On the whole, I found it a little too sweet, but I was able to fix that with some Yankee ingenuity: I washed it.

There was not much hyuganatsu taste in the yokan but the peel is overflowing with flavor and fragrance. The yokan is a prefect balance to the sour of the peel. My only criticism is that it is quite sweet. Wagashi that is intended to be enjoyed with bitter maccha is often very sweet, so this is not unusual. Most of the sweetness comes from the sugar that is adhered to the candied peel. I tried scraping away some of the sugar with a knife but it is really stuck. I then tried running water over a slice for a few seconds, once to melt the sugar and a second time to wash it away. That removed a good portion of the sugar and that made the sweetness perfect for me.

Eating Hyuganatsu Fresh
You can see how to slice the hyuganatsu for eating fresh on this Sake Chat and Hyuganatsu Kyoto Diary article.

Hyuganatsu Marmalade Article Tease:
This was a beauty to behold, cook and eat! Hopefully I will get to it soon, until then..

Miyazaki Citrus Hyuganatsu

Miyazaki Citrus Hyuganatsu Ready for Making Marmalade

This yokan wagashi is section of river with swimming fish, floating green leaves and boulders that in addition to being tasty meant to have a cooling effect on the mind of the eater.

This confection is called Kibunegawa, after the Kibune River which is a stream in the North Mountains of Kyoto that flows down to the Kamo River. The village of Kibune is a very popular summer destination for a half day trip from Kyoto (city) to cool down. The temperature in the mountains, with shade cast by lush evergreen trees and cool, fast flowing streams, makes people feel very refreshed.

Kibunegawa Yokan with Fish, Leaves and Boulders

Of course people can not go up to Kibune to cool down every time they work up a sweat, but Kyoto people still want something in their everyday lifestyle to make them feel cool and refreshed, even if it is more psychological rather than physical.

Changing interior decorations in their house is one way to feel cool. For example, the zabuton cushion cover and noren curtain color are changed to blue or white in the summer. The fabric will change from soft, fuzzy cotton in the winter to hard, stiff ‘asa’ linen. People use more glassware for meals to produce cool atmosphere. People also put out furin wind chimes under their eves to hear cool sound. There are countless things what Japanese try to feel cool in brain.

Food is another very important way to feel cool and sweets and confections are not excluded. This Kibunegawa summer yokan plays on the Japanese senses to help people feel cool.

The transparency suggests cool and refreshing water. The green maple leaves and ayu sweetfish recall the season, but in a verdant and fresh atmosphere. The visual motif of swimming is particularly strong. Don’t you feel cool from looking at fish swimming in the water?

This is Kyoto people’s way of enjoying hot summer. You can not enjoy this to the most if you are in air conditioned cool room. If you understand what I am saying, maybe you got Japanese sense of seasons.

Kibunegawa Yokan with Fish, Leaves and Boulders

Kibunegawa Yokan Cross Section