Eating Japanese Maple Leaves

Have you ever eaten maple leaves?

Not maple syrup, maple leaves.

Usually, we just look at colorful kaede / momiji, or Japanese maple leaves, in fall.

In northern Osaka, people eat momiji tempura.

Not an everyday snack, these are a local food from the Minoh area, only sold during the koyo season when visitors flock to the mountains in the area.

Japanese maple are a fall icon, similar to sakura in the spring. Plus, these momiji tempura are a deep golden color when fried.

It's a perfect compliment to enjoying the fall leaves.

Apparently the recipe was made over 1300 years ago on Mt. Minoh to appreciate the colorful leaves in fall. From what I read about the process to make momiji tempura, the yellow leaves are collected from trees (not fallen leaves) in fall from a specific type of Japanese maple tree with edible leaves. They are then washed and preserved with salt, in a process similar to making umeboshi. This takes one year or longer. The maple leaves you can eat this fall might be from last year or two years ago.

Of course, I needed to give these a try when we visited Minoh Falls in late October. (November is a better time for fall colors and illumination, but also much more crowded.)

The momiji tempura is sold at several shops on the "taki michi" leading to the waterfall in Minoh Park, as well as in select shops in the area. While walking, you can see shopkeepers frying the leaves.

Pricing will go up at the shops right in front of the waterfall, so it's better to buy them at the lower part of the road. The shop I bought them from sold packs of 60 grams for 300 yen, omiyage-worthy boxes of 90 grams for 500 yen, and likewise bigger boxes for 1000 yen and up if you're giving someone with strong teeth a souvenir. One leaf on it's own will run around 100 yen, so it's cheaper to get the small pack and try them with friends. At the end of the road, in front of the waterfall, prices were about double.

The above is the package of 90 grams of momiji tempura, which was a good size snack for two people. 

The ingredients are really different from tempura batter, so I'm not sure why they're called that. The ingredients above show flour, sugar, sesame seeds, momiji leaves, and vegetable oil. They last around a month, surprisingly.

So what do they taste like?

Not like my idea of tempura, which is lighter and thinner in most cases. The leaves are thickly coated in batter and deeply fried, so they are super crispy! The taste is slightly sweet, salty, and oily - exactly like fried biscuits you might find in the otsumami section of any supermarket. In fact, they'd pair well with some Minoh Beer, also sold in some shops in the park. The shape is probably the cutest part, and despite containing maple leaves, there isn't an obvious leaf taste or anything.

I liked them and would probably get them again, especially if anyone was visiting from out of town or I wanted a gift for someone - who doesn't wear dentures, hah.