Edogawa

In 1719 the eighth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, stopped at a shrine in this area while out hawking. The visit was unannounced and no meal had been prepared, so the priest served a clear soup with rice cake, garnished with a local green. Yoshimune liked it and asked its name; told it had none, he is said to have ordered that it be called komatsuna, after the village.

This account is the one preserved at the shrine, and it is transmitted alongside a rival version crediting the fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi. A separate line of explanation holds that komatsuna descends directly from Edo-period kasai-na, improved locally. The story, in other words, has never been settled — and knowing that is the more accurate position.

Greenhouses in Edogawa still grow komatsuna, and a stone marker and information board recording the origin stand at the shrine. It is not a dressed-up tourist site but an ordinary shrine in a residential district: without reading the signs, you would walk straight past.