Of Gender, Gods, and Radishes
February 16 in Ōno City of north Fukui prefecture means its time for “Isekō,” a radish-eating extravaganza for men with an alleged 300-year-old history. Ōno City is a modern municipality of just over 30,000 residents (and steadily declining), a postwar merger of the Edo-period castle town of Ōno and a handful of nearby villages. Lining Ōno’s northeastern horizon line are the frosted peaks of Mt. Haku (lit. “White Mountains”), a National Park reputed as one of Japan “Three Great Sacred Mountains” (alongside Mt. Fuji to the southeast and Mt. Tateyama further northeast). A ring of mountains wraps all around the city, in fact, and the region was not easily accessible until mountain tunnels were blasted in the 20th century. A beautifully scenic and rather isolated place, to say the least. In the city’s Tsuchifugo ward (once an independent hamlet), at the confluence of three rivers (Kuzuryū, Mana, Akane), local men gather on this day to munch on “logs” of miso-simmered radish. This is