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Vegetables from Yamakawa district, Ibusuki, Kagoshima

Yamakawa-zuke and tsubozuke (Kagoshima pounded dried-daikon pickle)山川漬

Yamakawa-zuke is a salt-only pickle of sun-dried daikon from Yamakawa in southern Kagoshima. The dried roots are pounded with salt in a wooden mortar so the salt gets in, then packed tight in large clay jars with no weight and fermented for half a year or more. Squeezing out as much water as possible is what lets it keep in the warm south.

Fully documentedVegetables7 months – 13 months

Recipe

Yamakawa-zuke and tsubozuke (Kagoshima pounded dried-daikon pickle), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Nissy-KITAQ, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceOne large jar, about 1 m across and 1.5 m deep, as recorded in Kagoshima (Kumagai et al. 2025).
Nerima daikon2,000–2,500 rootsAbout 600 kg once dried[kumagai2025]
Salt30 kgWorked out as 5 % of the dried daikon weight[kumagai2025]

Total time across the recorded steps: 7 months – 13 months

Start
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What changes: Daikon dry in the winter sun on tall racks for about a month

Step 1 of 5
Sun-dry the daikon on racks
Time
30 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Pediococcus pentosaceus

Output: dried daikon.

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

Yamakawa-zuke is a salt-only pickle of sun-dried daikon from Yamakawa in southern Kagoshima. The dried roots are pounded with salt in a wooden mortar so the salt gets in, then packed tight in large clay jars with no weight and fermented for half a year or more. Squeezing out as much water as possible is what lets it keep in the warm south. Made in 5 steps over 7 months – 13 months. The longest step, ferment and mature in the jar, draining the liquid, takes 6–12 months (熊谷奈々 2025). Salt is 5 % (熊谷奈々 2025). In homemade takuan, a related Japanese dried-daikon pickle (not yamakawa-zuke), one lactic acid bacterium, Pediococcus pentosaceus (strain TOKAI 10m), was isolated on MRS agar; the study did not survey the whole flora does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step6–12 monthsReported[kumagai2025][ootomi2018]Ferment and mature in the jar, draining the liquid
Salt5 %Reported[kumagai2025]Pack tight in a clay jar between layers of salt

What makes this one different

Most takuan is packed in rice bran under a weight. Yamakawa-zuke uses salt only, is pounded in a mortar, and is packed into clay jars with no weight; removing as much water as possible suits it to the warm south [ootomi2018]. Modern tsubozuke is a different, milder product [jawp-tsubozuke].

Related ferments

Variants

  • Tsubozuke (modern)When demand outgrew the jars, makers salted daikon in tanks, chopped it small and pickled it in soy sauce; it is mild and crunchy and sold nationwide [jawp-tsubozuke].

Safety

The sources credit its keeping to hard drying, about 5 % salt by dried weight and tight packing in a sealed jar [kumagai2025, ootomi2018], and they record no pH or water activity. An airless jar is not a safeguard. The bacteria that cause botulism live in soil and grow well with little oxygen (FDA), the CDC lists all fresh vegetables as low-acid foods, and it names improperly fermented homemade foods as a common source. A pathogen table in the FDA's seafood guide puts the growth limits for proteolytic Clostridium botulinum at pH 4.6 and water activity 0.935, and no source we read shows this pickle reaches either. You cannot see, smell or taste the toxin (CDC). This page records makers' large jars, not a safe home method.

History and sources

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

Yamakawa-zuke was once called karazuke ("Chinese pickle"). In 1592, farmers near Yamakawa port supplied it as rations for Shimazu Yoshihisa's warships bound for Korea [ootomi2018]. The port had traded with Ming China since about 1474, and the method may have come with Chinese traders [kumagai2025]. The name Yamakawa-zuke dates from the Edo period [ootomi2018]. In 2018 only four shops still made it, and only two from raw daikon [ootomi2018].

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [kumagai2025] 熊谷奈々, 西岡征子, 冨永美穂子, 中嶋名菜, 望月美左子, 篠原久枝, 木下朋美, 田原美和 (Kumagai et al.) 2025, 九州・沖縄のご飯のおかず―味噌・漬物(発酵食品)― (Side dishes of rice in Kyushu and Okinawa, miso and fermented pickles), J Cookery Sci Jpn 58(4):217–221paper
  2. [ootomi2018] 大富あき子, 大富潤 (Ootomi A., Ootomi J.) 2018, 鹿児島県における山川漬の伝承と生産の現状 (The folklore and present status of production of Yamagawazuke pickles in Kagoshima Prefecture), Abstracts of the Annual Congress of the Japan Society of Home Economics 70, doi:10.11428/kasei.70.0_180 (abstract)paper
  3. [jawp-tsubozuke] Japanese Wikipedia, 壺漬け (outline only; used for the modern tsubozuke variant)wiki
  4. [hibi2025] Hibi T., Nakashima Y., Yasuda S., Hirano M., Kinoshita H., Kawanabe T. 2025, Complete genome sequence of Pediococcus pentosaceus TOKAI 10m isolated from Japanese Takuan pickle, Microbiology Resource Announcements 14(12):e00738-25paper
  5. [cdc-botulism] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Botulism Preventiongov
  6. [fda-bbb] US Food and Drug Administration 2012, Bad Bug Book, 2nd edition, Clostridium botulinumgov
  7. [fda-app4] US FDA 2011, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, 4th ed., Appendix 4, Bacterial pathogen growth and inactivation, Table A-1gov