fukinoto (butterbur flower bud)
ingredient / ingredient-fukinoto
ふきのとう
Fukinoto (butterbur flower bud) is the flower buds of Petasites japonicus, gathered from late winter to early spring. A representative bitter Japanese wild vegetable.
Photographs (captions in Japanese)
The flower stalk of Japanese butterbur (Petasites japonicus), known as fukinotō. A just-opening stage, with a cluster of white flower heads at the center surrounded by pale green bracts opening in a rosette from the soil. Photographed in a garden in the Netherlands, so the growing conditions differ from those of plants harvested in Japan.
Shown: Petasites japonicusPart / state: The inflorescence of Japanese butterbur (Petasites japonicus) emerging at ground level (fukinotō). Wrapped in bracts, with white flower heads gathered at the center, from bud to early flowering
Photo: Dominicus Johannes Bergsma / CC BY-SA 4.0 / original image / ledger's original image
Scope and provenance of the photo
Identification: Identified as labelled in the source. The photograph is of a cultivated plant in the Netherlands and is not a representative example of the origin or growing environment of "fukinotō" harvested as a wild vegetable in Japan. The scientific name is based on the source caption (Petasites japonicus).
Image shown: The 1920 px version from Wikimedia Commons. No cropping or color changes by NIGAMI LAB. For display, a WebP capped at 1200 px wide is served; the ledger's original image can be checked from the link above.
On this page (10 sections)
Reading the bitterness
Fukinoto is the flower bud of Japanese butterbur (Petasites japonicus) that emerges from late winter into early spring and is known as a representative bitter Japanese wild vegetable. A Miyagi Prefecture record of regional cuisine says the plant is called 「ばっけ」 (in translation: "bakke") in local dialect and that tender buds are picked before flowering because bitterness grows stronger and flavor worsens once the flowers open. The time of picking thus shapes fukinoto's character as a food eaten in the bud stage.
Bakkenolide B was isolated as a principal component of its bitterness. Working with air-dried fukinoto gathered within roughly 50 km of Sendai, a Tohoku Pharmaceutical University group separated this white crystalline compound by organic-solvent extraction and alumina column chromatography in work spanning the 1960s to 1972. Its melting point was 101–102°C, and it accounted for about 0.1% of the air-dried plant. It was first named petasinolide, then renamed because the name overlapped with a component of European butterbur; it was also confirmed to be the same substance as fukinolide reported by another researcher.
The same extraction process found other bitter components. Isopetasin, with a melting point of 95°C, accounted for 0.09% of the air-dried plant; oily fukinone was obtained by vacuum distillation at a yield of about 0.2%. Both were described as bitter. The researchers also found that very little fukinoto bitterness passed into hot water or dilute alcohol extracts. In response, they abandoned their initial leading view, 「苦味は配糖体による」 (in translation: "bitterness comes from glycosides"), and switched to organic-solvent extraction. This record suggests that the bitter components may be poorly soluble in water.
Fukinoto is described in a Shimane Prefecture record as a spring food sold from January through early April. The record describes fukinoto miso, made by boiling the buds in water with salt and baking soda, soaking them in water for a while to remove harshness, chopping them, and mixing them with white or barley miso. A Miyagi record similarly describes bakke miso as a spring home dish prepared in households. The isolation of bitter components, however, rests on an explanatory article from one laboratory. No sensory test quantifying bitterness intensity or source quantifying how much bitterness is reduced by boiling and discarding the water has yet been identified.
A cooking article in the Forestry Agency's February 2016 issue includes a paste made by chopping 100 g of fukinoto with 2 tablespoons of salad oil, stir-frying it for 1 to 2 minutes, and then cooking it for 4 to 5 minutes with seasoning and water. The cooking researcher who wrote the article explains that cooking with oil makes the bitterness milder, and states that the finished paste can be served on rice or tofu, and also used to season stir-fried vegetables.
Sources for this overview
Checked for this overview: Checked the dialect name bakke and the reason for picking before flowering. / Checked the description of Miyagi bakke miso as a spring home dish.
Checked for this overview: Checked the materials, methods, and renaming history for the isolation of bakkenolide B. / Checked the descriptions of isopetasin and fukinone bitterness and their yields. / Checked the account that bitterness did not transfer into hot-water or dilute-alcohol extracts.
Checked for this overview: Checked the selling season and method for making fukinoto miso in the Shimane record. / Checked the parboiling with salt and baking soda and the harshness-removal step.
春の香り 豆腐とふきのとうの炒め煮とふきのとうの万能ペースト
Checked for this overview: Used to describe the ingredient amounts, stir-frying time, additional cooking time, the cooking researcher's explanation of cooking with oil, and its use on rice, tofu, and stir-fried vegetables
Other names: ばっけ (ja)
Follow the connections
fukinoto (butterbur flower bud) →— principal bitter compound→ bakkenolide B
bakke miso →includes→ fukinoto (butterbur flower bud)
fukinoto (butterbur flower bud) →is prepared through→ aku-nuki (blanch-and-soak treatment)
Hypotheses and recipe candidates for this entry are on the Japanese page.
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
Composition and content (2)
Scope: Air-dried fukinoto collected around Sendai and studied by a group at Tohoku College of Pharmacy (1960s-1972)
Note: After the author initially named it Petasinolide, it was renamed Bakkenolide-B in consultation with Abe and Kitahara to avoid a name conflict with a European fuki constituent. It is the same substance as Naya et al.'s Fukinolide. Based on an expository article from a single research group; the primary experimental paper has not been read.
Show data
ingredient-fukinoto —has_principal_bitter_compound→ compound-bakkenolide-bScope: The same air-dried fukinoto material used for the isolation of Bakkenolide-B
Note: Neither the intensity, threshold, nor contribution ratio of the bitterness is recorded — only a qualitative description that it possesses bitterness. An antimicrobial assay is recorded as showing that none of the bitter substances exhibited antimicrobial activity.
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ingredient-fukinoto —contains→ (the claim sentence above)Sensory (1)
Scope: Santoka Taneda's diary (held in Aozora Bunko; see the source for bibliographic data)
Note: A subjective taste description in a personal diary, not a standardized sensory panel test. Notes that bitterness is described positively, placed alongside 『うまさ』 (in translation: "deliciousness").
Show data
ingredient-fukinoto —has_sensory_attribute→ (the claim sentence above)How processing and cooking change it (3)
Scope: An extraction experiment on fukinoto reported by Kurihara (1972)
Show data
ingredient-fukinoto —has_bitterness_poorly_extracted_by→ (the claim sentence above)Scope: The Shimane fukinoto-miso recipe in MAFF's "Uchi no Kyodo Ryori" (Our Local Cuisine) database
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ingredient-fukinoto —is_prepared_with→ process-aku-nukiScope: Cooking researcher Horie Sawako's 「ふきのとうの万能ペースト」 (in translation: "All-purpose fukinoto paste"), published in the February 2016 issue of Rinya (RINYA), the Forestry Agency's magazine
Note: A single recipe by one cooking researcher. The article states that cooking with oil makes the bitterness milder, but this is not a sensory test with comparison samples, evaluators, and a scale.
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ingredient-fukinoto —is_documented_as_having→ (the claim sentence above)Culture (3)
Scope: A Miyagi home dish recorded in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries' 「うちの郷土料理」 (in translation: "Our Regional Cuisine") database.
Note: Bakke is the Miyagi dialect name for fukinoto. The record says 「花が咲いてしまうと苦味も強く不味くなるので、花が咲く前のやわらかい蕾を摘みとって用いる」 (in translation: "once the flowers bloom, bitterness becomes stronger and the taste worsens, so tender buds are picked before flowering"), showing that bitterness governs harvest timing.
Show data
dish-bakke-miso —includes→ ingredient-fukinotoScope: Records from Shimane (fukinoto miso) and Miyagi (bakke miso) in MAFF's "Uchi no Kyodo Ryori"
Note: A record of cultural positioning in a public database. Not a claim about safety or health effects.
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ingredient-fukinoto —is_presented_as→ (the claim sentence above)Scope: Kigosai Saijiki
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ingredient-fukinoto —has_cultural_role_of→ (the claim sentence above)