Research note 038 — 2026-09-04
Pile Bitterness onto the Spring Plate — the Saying and the Sansai, in Fact
春の皿には苦味を盛れ ("fill the spring plate with bitterness") is a line repeatedly introduced in food-culture and health-focused web media. Tracing its origin, the sources cited are not uniform, and even the same line's final word varies by source. Meanwhile, the ingredients this saying points to — fukinoto, nanohana, warabi, zenmai, kogomi, udo, and takenoko — each have their own bitter compounds and aku-removal practices, recorded in separate sources. This note reads the lineage of the saying and the actual bitterness of these sansai side by side, as separate questions.
On this page (8 sections)
- What this page establishes
- Tracing "Fill the Spring Plate with Bitterness"
- Bitterness That Became a Kigo, Bitterness Left in a Diary
- Fukinoto's Bitterness and Aku Removal
- Nanohana, Warabi, Zenmai, and Kogomi, Each in Fact
- Udo and Bamboo Shoots: How They Are Grown and Their Bitterness
- What is not known
- Frequently asked
What this page establishes
- The origin of 春の皿には苦味を盛れ ("fill the spring plate with bitterness") is widely explained as coming from a Meiji-era dietary book, but whether that passage actually exists in the original text has not been confirmed.
- The principal bitter compound of fukinoto is reported in a single study as one compound isolated from an air-dried sample.
- Nanohana, warabi, zenmai, kogomi, udo, and takenoko each have aku-removal procedures recorded in separate sources, but no source quantifying how much these procedures reduce bitterness has been confirmed here.
- A single study shows that the chemicals involved in takenoko's bitterness correlate with tannin content at the stage when it has grown above ground and is exposed to sunlight.
Tracing 春の皿には苦味を盛れ ("fill the spring plate with bitterness")
Multiple food-culture and health-focused web media introduce this saying in a tone suggesting that many people have probably heard the proverb 春の皿には苦味を盛れ ("fill the spring plate with bitterness").
Scope: Japanese-language web media (food-culture and health columns)
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concept-spring-bitter-plate-saying —is_presented_as→ "A saying repeatedly presented by several food-culture and health web media as a "proverb" urging people to eat bitter foods (mainly sansai and spring vegetables) in spring"Many of these attribute its origin to a passage in 食物養生法 (Shokumotsu Yōjōhō, "Methods of Dietary Regimen," 1898) by Ishizuka Sagen, a Meiji-era physician and pharmacist, quoting the line 「春苦味、夏は酢の物、秋辛味、冬は油と合点して食え」 (in translation: "in spring, bitterness; in summer, vinegared dishes; in autumn, pungency; in winter, understand to eat oil"). However, the word for winter varies between citations — some give 「油」 ("oil"), others 「脂肪」 ("fat") — and no media outlet gives the original page number. A reference answer that investigated the bibliographic data confirms that Shokumotsu Yōjōhōwas published in Meiji 31 (1898) by Hakubunkan and runs 211 pages, but it does not confirm whether this passage actually appears in the body text. Some articles use the same headline phrase without mentioning Ishizuka Sagen in the body, giving only the explanation that it "mainly refers to spring vegetables," so the explanation of attribution is not uniform across media outlets.
Scope: The attribution theory pointing to Ishizuka Sagen's Shokumotsu Yōjōhō (1898)
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concept-spring-bitter-plate-saying —has_historical_origin_narrative→ "Several food-culture and health web media, along with the official website of Fukui City, explain that it originates from a passage in Ishizuka Sagen's book Shokumotsu Yōjōhō (1898), a Meiji-era physician and pharmacist: "spring bitterness, vinegared dishes in summer, pungent flavor in autumn, and oil (or, depending on the source, 'fat') in winter — eat with this understanding""As an actual artifact closer to this saying, frame 45 of the first volume of 食養道歌俗解(Shokuyō Dōka Zokukai, a poetry collection composed by Ishizuka Sagen with a popular commentary added by Todō Harutoyo [Kobanaen], Shokuyō Shinbunsha, 1906) shows the phrase 「春苦味」 (in translation: "spring bitterness") set off in quotation marks, together with the words 「夏は酢のもの」 (in translation: "summer is vinegared things") and 「秋辛味」 (in translation: "autumn pungency") in the same paragraph, and a commentary on a verse linking the seasons to dietary regimen. However, the specific sentence containing the one word assigned to winter (「油」, "oil," or 「脂肪」, "fat") could not be read with certainty even in high-resolution images.
Scope: Shokuyō Dōka Zokukai, upper volume, image 45 (National Diet Library Digital Collections, pid 836944)
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concept-spring-bitter-plate-saying —is_documented_in→ "Image 45 of the upper volume of Shokuyō Dōka Zokukai (Shokuyō Shinbunsha, 1906) — a collection of poems composed by Ishizuka Sagen with a vernacular commentary added by Uji Harukazu (pen name Konohanaen) — contains one poem linking the seasons to food-based regimen. The commentary text presents one phrase of the poem in quotation marks as "spring bitterness," and goes on to explain the poem's intent using the words "vinegared things in summer," "pungent flavor in autumn," and a phrase corresponding to "eat with this understanding.""This saying belongs to a different lineage from the five-flavor/five-season correspondence table of Five Phases theory. One yakuzen (medicinal-cuisine) page assigns bitterness to summer and the heart within the Five Phases framework, while another traditional-East-Asian-medicine page assigns sourness to spring in the "wood" series. It is the side of 春の皿には苦味を盛れ ("fill the spring plate with bitterness") that links bitterness to spring — not the Five Phases correspondence table itself.
Scope: Comparison with the five-flavor/five-season correspondence table of Five Phases (gogyou) theory
Note: 「春の皿には苦味を盛れ」 (in translation: "fill the spring plate with bitterness") and the passage attributed to Ishizuka Sagen as its origin assign bitterness to spring, but in the five-flavor/five-season correspondence table of Five Phases theory, which derives from traditional Chinese medicine, bitterness is assigned to summer and the heart (shin, the heart organ), while spring is assigned sourness and the liver. The correspondence between Ishizuka Sagen's dietary theory and the classical Five Phases scheme does not match, at least in the seasonal placement of bitterness. NIGAMI LAB does not judge which side is correct on this agreement or disagreement; it records only how each is stated in its own source.
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concept-spring-bitter-plate-saying —differs_from→ concept-gogyou-five-taste-season-tableArticles introducing this saying cite fukinoto, tara-no-me, udo, nanohana, and other spring sansai and spring vegetables as concrete examples.
Scope: Japanese-language web media (food-culture columns)
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concept-spring-bitter-plate-saying —includes→ "As concrete examples of this saying, multiple web media outlets cite fukinoto, tara-no-me, udo, nanohana, and other spring sansai and spring vegetables"Bitterness That Became a Kigo, Bitterness Left in a Diary
By a route separate from the saying, bitterness has also become a kigo (season word). The Kigosai Saijiki lists fukinoto as a kigo for early spring, explaining that its distinctive fragrance and faintly bitter flavor are prized, and includes Sugita Hisajo's haiku 「ほろ苦き恋の味なり蕗のたう」 (in translation: "the taste of a faintly bitter love, this fukinoto").
Scope: Kigosai Saijiki
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ingredient-fukinoto —has_cultural_role_of→ "A kigo (season word) for early spring in haiku. Its related child-kigo include "fuki no me," "fuki no hana," and "fuki no shūtome," and the Kigosai Saijiki explains that it is "valued for its distinctive fragrance and slightly bitter flavor." It records as an example verse Sugita Hisajo's haiku "horonigaki koi no aji nari fuki no tō" (a slightly bitter taste of love, this fukinoto)."Tara-no-me is a kigo for mid-spring, and the same saijiki explains it as 「少し苦味のある若芽は春先の山菜の代表的なもの」 (in translation: "a slightly bitter young shoot, representative of the sansai of early spring"), and includes Issa's haiku 「たらの芽のとげだらけでも喰はれけり」 (in translation: "even covered in thorns, tara-no-me still gets eaten") (from 八番日記, Hachiban Nikki) as an example verse.
Scope: Kigosai Saijiki
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ingredient-taranome —has_cultural_role_of→ "A kigo for mid-spring in haiku. The Kigosai Saijiki explains that "the slightly bitter young shoot is a representative sansai of early spring." It records as an example verse Issa's haiku "tara no me no toge darake demo kuwarekeri" (even thorn-covered, the tara-no-me shoot gets eaten) from Hachiban Nikki (Eighth Diary)."There are also examples in personal records of writing down the bitterness of fuki. Santoka Taneda wrote in his diary, 『蕗のうまさ、ほろにがい味は何ともいへない。』 (in translation: "the deliciousness of fuki, its faintly bitter taste, is beyond words"), and in another diary entry from the same year also wrote, 『蕗のほろにがさには日本的老心といつたやうな味がある。』 (in translation: "the faint bitterness of fuki has a taste like a Japanese old-soul quality"). This is a description of personal, subjective taste, not a standardized sensory panel.
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").
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ingredient-fukinoto —has_sensory_attribute→ "The taste of fuki and fukinoto, recorded as 『蕗のうまさ、ほろにがい味は何ともいへない。』 (in translation: "the deliciousness of fuki, its faintly bitter taste, is beyond words") — a passage from Santoka Taneda's diary. A diary entry from the same year also contains the passage 『蕗のほろにがさには日本的老心といつたやうな味がある。』 (in translation: "the faint bitterness of fuki has a taste like a Japanese old-soul quality")."Fukinoto's Bitterness and Aku Removal
The bitter compound of fukinoto has also been traced in the laboratory. From air-dried fukinoto collected around Sendai, a group at Tohoku Pharmaceutical University isolated a white crystal as the principal bitter compound, initially called petasinolide before being renamed bakkenolide B.
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.
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ingredient-fukinoto —has_principal_bitter_compound→ compound-bakkenolide-bIn the course of the same research, it is also recorded that almost none of the bitterness transferred into hot-water or dilute-alcohol extracts. The author is recorded as having left behind the then-dominant hypothesis of a bitter glycoside, switching to organic-solvent extraction instead.
Scope: An extraction experiment on fukinoto reported by Kurihara (1972)
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ingredient-fukinoto —has_bitterness_poorly_extracted_by→ "Almost no bitterness transfers into hot-water extracts or dilute-alcohol extracts. The author abandoned the bitter-glycoside hypothesis and used organic-solvent extraction instead."The actual kitchen pretreatment is recorded separately from this experiment. The Shimane fukinoto-miso recipe states that it is boiled in water with salt and baking soda added, then soaked in water to remove egumi, before being mixed into the miso.
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-nukiPublic information from MAFF also states that this kind of traditional aku removal — boiling-and-discarding and water-soaking — can greatly reduce the pyrrolizidine alkaloid content of fuki and fukinoto. The reduction rate itself is not given as a number on this page.
Scope: Fuki and fukinoto. Public information from MAFF based on a survey of PA in foods
Note: Explained as due to the water-soluble nature of PAs. The reduction rate is not given as a number on the information page, and the press release for the 2nd-report content survey that carried the figures could not be retrieved (403).
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process-aku-nuki —reduces→ compound-pyrrolizidine-alkaloidsBoth the Shimane and Miyagi local-cuisine records introduce fukinoto as a beloved spring taste, or as a sansai that heralds the arrival of spring. This is a record of cultural positioning, not a claim about sensory qualities or compounds.
Scope: 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→ "A beloved spring taste, and a sansai that heralds the arrival of spring"Nanohana, Warabi, Zenmai, and Kogomi, Each in Fact
Nanohana's bitterness has also been examined from the side of its compounds. In a survey of glucosinolate composition targeting nabana from the Japanese market (samples collected in Fukushima and Kagawa), nabana had the highest content of the principal glucosinolates among the 15 vegetables surveyed, with aliphatic glucosinolates making up most of the total.
Scope: Nabana from the Japanese market (Fukushima, December 2008 and December 2010; Kagawa, February 2011). LC-MS method for desulfoglucosinolates
Note: The content of both GSLs was the highest among the 15 Japanese Brassica items surveyed, and the total GSL amount was second only to broccoli sprouts. This is compositional data; this paper does not address the sensory correspondence with bitterness.
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ingredient-nanohana —contains→ compound-glucosinolatesA general-audience food-culture article from MAFF introduces its distinctive bitterness as an accent in cooking.
Scope: A general-audience food-culture article from MAFF's aff (magazine)
Note: Not a sensory test.
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ingredient-nanohana —has_cultural_role_of→ "Its distinctive bitterness is savored as an accent in cooking"According to a local-cuisine record from Yamagata Prefecture, warabi is used, after aku removal, in tataki, ohitashi, simmered dishes, miso soup, and the like.
Scope: A public local-cuisine record on warabi from Yamagata Prefecture
Note: A recorded cooking practice; it does not give a reduction rate for any specific compound or for bitterness from aku removal.
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ingredient-warabi —is_prepared_with→ process-aku-nukiAccording to a local-cuisine record from mountain villages including Otoyo, Kochi Prefecture, zenmai is recorded as a food that, once boiled and dried, allows for long-term storage.
Scope: A local-cuisine record from mountain villages including Otoyo, Kochi Prefecture
Note: A description of a preserved food in a public record. There is no quantified value for drying conditions or storage duration.
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ingredient-zenmai —is_preserved_by→ "Boiling and drying it allows for long-term storage"Inconsistency within the source itself is also recorded for kogomi's name. A local-cuisine record from Tateyama Town, Toyama Prefecture, states in its body text, 「くごみ。クサソテツの新芽の別称で、地域によってはこごみとも呼ばれている」 (in translation: "kugomi. An alternate name for the young shoots of ostrich fern; in some regions it is also called kogomi"), while the recipe note on the same page calls it 「富山県ではこごめ、こごみ」 (in translation: "in Toyama Prefecture, kogome, kogomi"), so the regional attribution of the names does not agree between the body text and the note.
Scope: A local-cuisine record from Ashikuraji, Tateyama Town, Toyama Prefecture
Note: The source records it as an alternate name for the young shoots of ostrich fern. It does not directly give a scientific name. Where the body text and the recipe note disagree on the regional attribution of the names, both are kept as stated in the original (re-confirmed against the original text on 2026-09-01).
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ingredient-kogomi —has_local_name→ "The body of the source calls the main ingredient 「くごみ」 (in translation: "kugomi," an alternate name for the young shoots of ostrich fern), stating that in some regions it is also called 「こごみ」 (in translation: "kogomi"). The recipe note in the same source states 「富山県ではこごめ、こごみ」 (in translation: "in Toyama Prefecture it is called kogome, kogomi"), so the attribution of the names to a region is inconsistent within the source itself."Udo and Bamboo Shoots: How They Are Grown and Their Bitterness
Udo's bitterness and egumi are spoken of in connection with how it is grown. In commercial cultivation in Tachikawa and other parts of Tokyo, a process is recorded in which udo is grown in a lightless underground pit called a muro.
Scope: Commercial cultivation in Tachikawa and other parts of Tokyo
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ingredient-udo-tokyo —is_processed_by→ process-udo-muro-blanchingMishima udo, handed down in Sendaiji, Ibaraki City, Osaka Prefecture, is grown by a different blanching method: rootstock is lined up in an udo hut, layered with straw and dried grass, and kept warm using the heat of fermentation. The Ibaraki City official page carries an introduction stating that, compared with ordinary blanched udo, it is 「色が白い、アクが少ない、柔らかい、みずみずしい、甘い」 (in translation: "whiter in color, lower in aku, softer, moister, and sweeter") — but this is promotional text without accompanying measured values, and what 「一般的な軟白うど」 (in translation: "ordinary blanched udo"), the point of comparison, refers to is also not specified in the body text.
Scope: A traditional comparison with standard muro-blanched udo, from the Ibaraki City official page
Note: A description in promotional text from the growing region, without accompanying measured values. 『アク』 (aku) is recorded in the original word rather than being equated with bitterness itself.
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ingredient-udo-mishima —is_documented_as_having→ "『一般的な軟白うどと比べて、色が白い、アクが少ない、柔らかい、みずみずしい、甘いと言われている』 (in translation: "compared with ordinary blanched udo, it is described as whiter in color, lower in aku, softer, moister, and sweeter") (from the Ibaraki City official page; hearsay phrasing in the source)"Takenoko's bitterness has also been examined in connection with its growth stage. Research from the Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences targeted three stages — the etiolated state grown underground, immediately after emerging above ground, and the stage grown 5-8cm above ground and exposed to sunlight — and reports that several chemicals involved in bitterness showed a significant positive correlation with tannin content. The species studied here is a different species from temperate moso bamboo and others, and no extrapolation to those is made.
Scope: Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences; an integrated transcriptome-metabolome analysis of the tip portion (about 5cm), across 3 stages with 3 replicates
Note: Verbatim data on absolute content (mg/g, etc.) could not be confirmed within the scope of this extraction; it remains limited to a description of the correlation and a qualitative increasing trend. No human sensory evaluation was carried out. This is a different species, in a different genus, from moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis), which is common in Japan, and no direct extrapolation is made.
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ingredient-bamboo-shoot-bambusa-oldhamii —develops_bitterness_depending_on→ "A 3-stage progression of growth: the stage growing underground (etiolated/yellowed state) → immediately after emerging above ground → the stage where it has grown 5-8cm above ground and is exposed to sunlight. 7 bitterness-related chemicals (Amygdalin, Apigenin, Arbutin, Salicin, Hypoxanthine, L-arginine, and Solanidine) showed a significant positive correlation with tannin content."Kitchen pretreatment is also recorded for takenoko. A record of Toyama Prefecture's takenoko miso-ni states that it is parboiled in water with rice bran and red chili pepper added, left to cool naturally while still soaking in the cooking liquid, then peeled and cut into rounds.
Scope: The preparation method in a local-cuisine record from Toyama Prefecture
Note: A parboiling method using rice bran and red chili pepper, different from the baking-soda aku removal for fukinoto (recorded elsewhere).
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dish-takenoko-misoni-toyama —is_prepared_with→ process-aku-nukiWhat is not known
- Whether 春の皿には苦味を盛れ ("fill the spring plate with bitterness") actually exists in the body text of Shokumotsu Yōjōhō could not be settled by this search. Multiple media outlets quote the same passage, but none give the original page number, and even the image of frame 45 ofShokuyō Dōka Zokukai could not resolve the single word assigned to winter.
- The relationship between this saying and the five-flavor/five-season correspondence table of Five Phases theory remains at the stage where placing the two sources side by side lets us say they "differ" — the sources do not speak to whether there is a historical connection between the two.
- A record was found listing tara-no-me and yamaudo as "sansai" in the Tohoku Regional Agricultural Administration Office's list of regional crops, but sources going into the actual details of cultivation, cooking, and bitterness are not yet included in NIGAMI LAB's materials.
Frequently asked
Is 春の皿には苦味を盛れ ("fill the spring plate with bitterness") really recorded as a proverb in dictionaries?
Food-culture and health-focused web media repeatedly introduce this saying as a proverb, but its inclusion in standard proverb dictionaries has not been confirmed so far. Many articles trace its origin toShokumotsu Yōjōhō (1898) and quote the line 「春苦味、夏は酢の物、秋辛味、冬は油(または脂肪)と合点して食え」 (in translation: "in spring, bitterness; in summer, vinegared dishes; in autumn, pungency; in winter, understand to eat oil (or fat)"), but no article gives the original page number, and a reference answer that investigated the bibliographic data also does not confirm whether this passage actually exists in the body text. Frame 45 of the related poetry collection does show the phrase 「春苦味」 (in translation: "spring bitterness") set off in quotation marks, but the one word assigned to winter could not be read with certainty even in a high-resolution image. The origin has not, so far, settled on any single source.
Does boiling and discarding the water remove fukinoto's bitterness?
In an experiment extracting the bitter compound from air-dried fukinoto, it is recorded that almost none of the compound transferred into hot water or dilute alcohol. On the other hand, public information from MAFF states that traditional pretreatment such as boiling-and-discarding and water-soaking can greatly reduce the pyrrolizidine alkaloid content of fuki and fukinoto. However, these two refer to different substances, and no source giving a number for how much the bitter compound itself is reduced by boiling-and-discarding has been confirmed here.
Related entries:fukinoto (butterbur flower bud) /nanohana (nabana) /aku-nuki (blanch-and-soak treatment) /warabi (bracken) /zenmai (Osmunda japonica) /kogomi (ostrich fern) /Tokyo udo /Mishima udo /bamboo shoot /"Fill the spring plate with bitterness" (Japanese saying)
Related research notes:How Bitter Leaves Get Handed to the Table /The Names of Wild-Greens Dishes Do Not Point to One Plant /A World Map of Debittering /How Bitterness, Astringency, and Egumi Differ
Topic hubs:Bitterness, Astringency, and Egumi /The Words for Bitterness
Sources are gathered in the source ledger.
How to cite this page
Aoki, M. (NIGAMI LAB) (2026). Pile Bitterness onto the Spring Plate. https://nigamilab.com/en/notes/spring-bitter-plate/
Each claim card has a stable anchor (#clm-…). The dataset is CC BY 4.0; see the data page. Dataset DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22739101