SANSAI (wild mountain greens)

Wild greens gathered for a few spring weeks, served in the valley's own bowls.

The mountain's short gift. For a few weeks each spring, as the snow withdraws, the hillsides offer wild greens that exist on no farm calendar — tara-no-me, the king of sansai, the tightly coiled fronds of kogomi, bitter fukinoto, warabi and zenmai. They are gathered, not grown; the season is brief and local, and the greens are eaten close to where they are picked — often as tempura, served in the valley's own bowls and baskets. Once a famine food recorded for survival in the Edo-period handbook Katemono, sansai is now tasted as the first clear sign of spring.