Kikkoman Corporation

The Japanese archipelago encompasses a remarkable range of climates and geography, whose various regions boast quite distinctive cuisines. This third installment in our series on Japan's regional food cultures focuses on the northern isle of Hokkaido, whose history and traditions have given rise to its own unique cuisine.

The Ainu

Hokkaido is Japan's second-largest island after Honshu. Located at the northernmost part of the archipelago, it is also the coldest: covered by coniferous forest and with a climate that varies from subarctic in the north to semi-temperate in the south, Hokkaido is reminiscent of Europe, east of the Alps.

The Ainu, the aboriginal people of Hokkaido, originally cultivated small plots of land but they survived chiefly on game. The Ainu men hunted deer, bear and other wild animals, and fished for trout, salmon and other fresh-water fish; the women gathered edible wild plants such as roots, nuts and berries.

An essential item in their diet was salmon, that intrepid fish that migrates from September to January from the sea to rivers, fighting its way upstream to spawn in such numbers that the rivers of Hokkaido once seethed with them. Salmon are called "autumn fish" in the Ainu language, or sometimes "fish from the gods." The Ainu caught salmon in huge quantities and used several methods of long-term preservation including drying, smoking over a slow fire, and allowing the fish to freeze in the cold. Frozen salmon is sliced thinly and dipped it in soy sauce, then savored as the fish melts in the mouth. This is called ruibe, an Ainu word meaning "thawed food," a typical Ainu way of eating salmon. Nowadays, ruibe is enjoyed throughout Japan.

Japanese from Honshu eventually established a colony in southern Hokkaido in the fifteenth century with the initial objective of trading with the Ainu for dried herring, used both as food and fertilizer, and for konbu (kelp), which was—and still is—an important ingredient in Japanese cooking.

Food-Producing Region

After the Meiji government was formed in 1868, it embarked upon a wide-ranging program of national modernization, and one of its early projects was to turn Hokkaido into a major food-producing area. Because parts of Hokkaido resembled the land and climate of northwestern Europe, the government promoted production methods and foods from Europe and America that were new to Japan, such as dairy farming (the traditional Japanese diet did not include dairy products) and raising cattle.

The government invited Western agricultural and animal breeding specialists to Japan; under their supervision, farmers in Hokkaido began growing potatoes, corn, sugar beets, onions and asparagus, among others. They also developed pastureland to raise milk cows, sheep and horses. Hokkaido became an important region for food production, and to this day it supplies the entire country with Western vegetables, dairy products and abundant marine products from the northern seas.

In the early years of its agricultural development, Hokkaido did not seem promising as a rice-growing area, but the farmers were a tenacious lot. It took fifty years of trying, but they finally transformed the region's plains into a productive rice belt with yields high enough so that rice became the staple food.

A Distinctive Food Culture

To open and develop the untamed land, the Meiji government encouraged farmers to emigrate from Honshu to Hokkaido. Naturally, these people brought their own traditions of food and cooking, and their settlements eventually formed a mosaic of many different food cultures dispersed across the island. At the same time, the people of Hokkaido crafted their own new specialties, which evolved into a culture of food purely Hokkaido's own.

One of these is called "Genghis Khan," fillet of mutton barbecued on a special dome-shaped grill, then dipped in a specially seasoned sauce. It may be somewhat deceptive to call this dish Genghis Khan, after the heroic Mongolian warrior-king, for it comes not from Mongolia but from Qing period (AD1644-1912) Beijing. The recipe was brought from China by Japanese before the Second World War, and it was well-received in Hokkaido. Until fairly recently, most Japanese did not eat lamb or mutton, but for those living in Hokkaido, sheep farming is a familiar way of life. They were willing to try the dish, and after making some changes to the Chinese method of cooking, Genghis Khan soon appeared on tables throughout Japan.

Ramen was, originally, simply Chinese noodles in soup, but this dish has been so thoroughly assimilated in Japan that you could say it has gone native. Hokkaido people living among dairy farms have grown fond of the taste of butter, and someone had the idea of adding butter to ramen, followed by another Hokkaido product, sweet corn. Next they added miso to flavor the soup, resulting in one of Hokkaido's most famous specialties, the immensely popular "miso butter corn ramen."

Distinctive types of food and cooking among the Ainu endure in Hokkaido even today and continue to thrive alongside the modern food culture that has evolved there. Hokkaido's modern-day cuisine is untouched by the conventions that constrain the long-established culinary cultures of areas like Tokyo and Kyoto. The northern frontier has indeed added new flavors to life that all Japanese enjoy.

Author's Profile

Naomichi Ishige, born in 1937 in Chiba Prefecture, is an anthropologist and authority on the history of food. Formerly associate professor and professor at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, he served as its director-general from 1997-2003 and is now professor emeritus. Among his many works are Shokuji no bunmeiron ("Of Meals and Civilization"), and Bunka-menruigaku kotohajime ("First Steps in the Study of Noodle Culture").