myoga ginger

Myoga is a perennial related to ginger, eaten not for its root but for its reddish-white flower buds, which push up straight from the soil in summer. Raw and sliced paper-thin, they taste fresh, mildly pungent and floral at once, with a hint of ginger and shallot but without ginger's heat or fibres. That crisp freshness is what makes myoga the classic garnish for cold noodles, tofu, soups and sashimi; it goes in late or raw, since cooking dulls its aroma. It is also pickled in vinegar, which turns it pink. Fresh myoga is rarely found outside Japan, most likely in a well-stocked Japanese or Asian grocery, sometimes frozen or pickled; the plant is hardy and can be bought from perennial nurseries or by mail order and grown in the garden.