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Sansai

In conjunction with the recent slow food movement, there has been a sudden increase in interest in sansai, or Japanese mountain vegetables, due to trends toward healthier organic food consumption among Japanese people.

These over forty types of sansai, including brackens, royal ferns, butterburs, horsetail, and sagebrush, mostly grow wild in the mountainous regions of Japan.

While sansai may not look edible to most non-Japanese, they are used in Japanese cuisine for their health benefits and to express the coming of spring.However, since many of these organic sansai cannot be found at average grocery stores, there are still many Japanese consumers who have yet to experience the differences in flavor, texture, and aroma from the usual limited variation of cultivated sansai.

One way to further enjoy sansai is to actually go out into the mountains to gather sansai, which is an exciting nature activity in itself with a healthy treat at the end.The sansai can be boiled, pickled, marinated, grilled, stir-fried, made into tempura (deep fried battered vegetables), put in nabe (hotpot), noodle soups, rice balls, or rice cakes, or mixed with miso (soybean paste).

While these sansai are generally used as the main ingredient for traditional Japanese dishes, sansai can also be eaten with just mayonnaise, or put in bread, cookies, or pasta.If you are unable to find a good selection of sansai at your local grocery store, fresh organic sansai can also be purchased online.