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Beneath the grass of the Heijo Palace site in Nara, archaeologists uncovered a well surrounded by hexagonal stone paving. Nearby lay wooden pipes, the sockets of large ceramic jars, and wooden tablets carrying notes about brewing. These were not the remains of an ordinary household workshop. They belonged to a governme
Early summer at a Sendai fish counter can bring a strange sight. Knobbly, orange-red lumps sit in the display, and they look more like fruit than seafood. Those lumps are the Hoya sea squirt, or maboya. Miyagi farmers raise them along the Sanriku Coast, so they turn up in local markets every summer. So what […] The pos
In fiscal 1973, Japan’s breweries shipped about 1.77 million kiloliters of sake, more than in any year before or since. Fifty years later, the figure was under 400,000. Modern sake is the story of how Japan got from one number to the other, and why the drop is only half the story. First, this guide […] The post Modern
In 1697, roughly 640,000 casks of sake arrived in Edo by sea. Almost none of it came from Nada, although that district later dominated Japanese brewing. Edo period sake is not really a story about better brewing, since most of the key techniques already existed by 1600. What changed was everything around them. That lea
Kōyō-zuke (紅葉漬), also written koyo-zuke or koyozuke, is a ready-to-eat fermented salmon specialty from northern Fukushima Prefecture. Producers make it by curing and maturing salmon with rice koji and salt. The result is salty and savory, with the mild sweetness and aroma of koji. People usually eat it in small
Fukuda Pan (福田パン) is not known for croissants or elaborate pastries. Instead, this family-run bakery in Morioka, the capital of Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan, specializes in one oversized style of coppe pan. It has been in business since 1948. Staff slice each roll and fill it at the counter with the customer’s ch
Walk a few blocks from Kaminarimon Gate in Asakusa, and you start to notice a pattern. One shop sells candied sweet potatoes, and the next sells sweet potato bars. A third, meanwhile, grills little sweet potato cakes. The Asakusa sweet potato tradition is real, and it makes a surprisingly good theme for an afternoon. T
Japan’s most famous gift melons wear a fine white net. Thank You Melon (サンキューメロン) does not. Instead, this pale, smooth-skinned melon with green flesh grows only in the Hachiryu district of Mitane Town. That district lies on the Sea of Japan coast of Akita Prefecture. Outside a short early-summer window, you will strugg
Say “Wagyu” to many travelers, and they picture beef so marbled it looks almost white. Iwaizumi Tankaku Beef (岩泉短角牛) tells a different story. The beef comes from Japanese Shorthorn cattle raised in Iwaizumi, Iwate Prefecture. It stands out for lean red meat, a firm texture, and deep beef flavor. Japanese Shorthorn, or
Benikomachi is a Japanese sweet potato cultivar closely associated with Chiba Prefecture. Written 紅小町 in Japanese, it has dark reddish-purple skin and pale yellow flesh. Cooked, it develops a floury, fluffy texture and mild sweetness, a clear contrast to the moist, high-sugar cultivars now common at specialist yakiimo
Pour a cup of plain genmaicha and it comes out thin, clear, and pale yellow-green, calm and unassuming in the cup. Pour a cup of matcha-iri genmaicha next to it, and the difference is obvious before you even taste it: a deeper, cloudier green, with a faint shimmer of powder that never quite settles. That’s […] The post
Beniharuka, officially registered in Japanese as べにはるか and commonly written 紅はるか in shops, is one of Japan’s best-known sweet potato cultivars for moist, strongly sweet yakiimo. It has reddish-purple skin and pale flesh that turns deeper yellow and much softer when cooked. In general, Japanese sweet potatoes, known col
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