Twelve Dishes That Tell Japan's Story

Every regional dish is a short history of its prefecture — its climate, its trade, its hardships and its celebrations. These twelve, one from each corner of the country, are a good place to start. Each links to its full page: history, ingredients and the traditional recipe.

Jingisukan (Hokkaido)

Mutton and vegetables grilled on a dome-shaped iron plate. Hokkaido raised sheep for wool in the Taishō era, and the meat became the island's defining dish — eaten in beer gardens all summer.

Hittsumi (Iwate)

A wheat-dumpling soup of the cold north: pieces of dough are pulled thin by hand — hittsumi means “pinched off” — and simmered with vegetables and mushrooms in a soy-based broth. Iwate's farmers' food for the long winter.

Kiritanpo Nabe (Akita)

Freshly cooked rice pounded, wrapped around cedar skewers and toasted, then simmered in a hot pot with Hinai chicken, burdock and mushrooms — Akita's harvest-season comfort food.

Hōtō (Yamanashi)

Wide, flat noodles simmered with pumpkin and root vegetables in a miso broth, in the pot they are served in. Landlocked Yamanashi's answer to winter, long told as a camp dish of the warlord Takeda Shingen's armies.

Miso Nikomi Udon (Aichi)

Nagoya's udon simmered directly in a clay pot of hatchō-miso broth until the noodles drink it in — served bubbling, lid as plate. The taste of Aichi's red-miso country.

Tekone-zushi (Mie)

Sushi rice hand-mixed with soy-marinated bonito — a fisherman's meal from Mie's Shima coast, made on the boat from the catch itself and eaten by hand.

Shippoku Udon (Kagawa)

Kagawa is Japan's udon prefecture, and its Sanuki noodles — firm and springy — are the local emblem. Shippoku style loads the bowl with simmered root vegetables and fried tofu: a winter dish at New Year gatherings.

Taimeshi

Sea bream and rice from Ehime, facing the Seto Inland Sea where tai is king. In the east of the prefecture the fish is baked whole with the rice; in the south it arrives as sashimi over a hot bowl.

Katuonotataki

Bonito seared over burning straw so only the surface cooks, then sliced thick and eaten with salt or citrus ponzu. Kochi's fishermen's dish, now served across Japan — but best where the bonito land.

Nagasaki Champon (Nagasaki)

A hearty noodle soup of pork, seafood and vegetables in a milky broth, created in Nagasaki's Chinatown in the Meiji era as a cheap, filling meal for Chinese students — and now a national favourite.

Okinawa Soba (Okinawa)

Okinawan wheat noodles in a clear pork-and-bonito broth, crowned with braised pork — belly (rafutē) or rib (sōki) simmered until the cartilage turns soft and sweet. A bowl that maps Okinawa's whole food history.

Butadon (Hokkaido)

Thick slices of pork grilled and glazed with a sweet soy sauce — modelled on eel kabayaki — and laid over rice. Born in Obihiro, in Hokkaido's pig-farming Tokachi plain, and now a byword for the region.

All twelve — and 1,353 more — are in the full catalogue.