Narutomaki, the fish cake with a spiral
What it is
Narutomaki, which almost everyone in Japan just calls naruto, is a kind of kamaboko: a cooked white fish paste that you eat in slices. You'll recognise it by the pink spiral in the middle of each slice and its wavy edge. It's already cooked: just slice it and put it in the bowl.
Why it's called that
The spiral is said to recall the Naruto whirlpools, the eddies the tide forms in the strait between Awaji Island and the city of Naruto, in Tokushima Prefecture. Everyone tells this story, but the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum points out that no document proves it.
How it's made
It starts from surimi, minced white fish: mostly Alaska pollock. This is mixed with salt, sugar, potato or wheat starch and seasonings. Part of the paste is coloured pink, then the two pastes are rolled up together, and there's your spiral. The roll is wrapped in a ridged mat, once made of straw and now of plastic, which gives it its wavy edge, and cooked at about 95 °C.
If you have allergies or coeliac disease, read the label: it's made from fish and the starch may be wheat.
Where it comes from
Nobody knows exactly where it was born. It already appears in a cookbook from 1864, at the end of the Edo period, when it was put on soba and in soups. When ramen arrived, still called shina soba ("Chinese soba"), naruto ended up there too: according to the Ramen Museum, this is the most likely explanation. In the Shōwa period (1926-1989) it was a standard topping. Today almost all of it comes from Yaizu, in Shizuoka Prefecture: according to the city's producers' cooperative, 90% of what's eaten in Japan.
In ramen
Cut it into thin slices and lay them in the bowl at the end: the hot broth is enough to warm them. In Japan it also goes on udon, in oden, in chirashizushi and in chawanmushi. Here you'll find it in Asian grocery shops, often frozen.
And Naruto?
The hero of Masashi Kishimoto's manga shares its name, and his surname, Uzumaki, means "spiral". In the story, Jiraiya picks the name for the hero of one of his novels while looking at the naruto in his ramen. Naruto's parents then give it to their son.
