How Regional is Japanese Cooking?

[Gabriel Lewis]

Having begun to stock my kitchen with the staple seasonings of Japanese cooking and a copy of the excellent Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, I have started to wonder about some of the holes in my knowledge of japanese cuisine. The book is of course an excellent guide, but I was struck by a thought when Tsuji mentioned that his book focuses on the cooking of Osaka. I realized I had no idea how regional japanese cooking was. Geographically, it isn't much smaller than countries like Italy or France, which despite their small size are very regional.

How much do seasonings, techniques, emphasis, etc vary from region to region in Japan? Could it be said that is a backbone to Japanese cooking present in every regional variation? Does it make sense to conceptualize "Japanese cooking" as a whole, or is more about the collection of different regional contributions?

[JasonTrue]

Japanese certainly see Japanese cuisine as strongly regional. You should see topics for several regions within Japan inside this forum. There's also a meibutsu thread .

Japan's about 25% larger than Italy, though I guess that's not so obvious from just looking at a map.

In general, for example, the further North you go to Akita, Iwate, and presumably Hokkaido, the more salt is used in cooking (from miso, pure salt or soy sauce). The further West you go, lighter and more mild tasting food is preferred.

Additionally, even within the same geographic region, there are historical differences in the way coastal and mountain people ate, for purely logistic reasons. Those differences are now disappearing to some extent thanks to trucking, but historically you'd see more bird and rabbit consumption in the mountains, obviously more river fish like ayu, and more foraged foods like mushrooms and mountain vegetables like butterbur, fern fronds and so on. Certainly far less fresh seafood than in areas near the ocean.

Sushi is essentially Tokyo food, even though it's now popular around the country. Okonomiyaki is very Osaka (and another style entirely is served in Hiroshima). Ramen styles vary a lot across the country, with the milky-cloudy Hakata ramen in the Fukuoka/Hakata area in west Japan notably different from the standard types served elsewhere.

A number of things are distinct to particular areas, like godoufu in Saga prefecture (distinct enough that many Tokyo people have never heard of it), oyaki in Nagano, houtou nabe (a wide noodle hot pot seasoned with miso) in Yamanashi, houba miso in Gifu.

Fresh yuba is particularly notable in Kyoto, although it's certainly eaten elsewhere. Dried, rolled yuba seemed to be a favorite in Nikko.

A number of fish were not universally available before widespread refrigerated trucking. Even fish used for soup stock historically varied. Katsuo, for example, weren't typically used in Akita cooking because it wasn't caught nearby, even though katsuo-bushi are now pervasive all over Japan. Niboshi, small dried whole fish, are still preferred for making soup stock in, I think, West Japan, including Yamaguchi prefecture.

Regional climate differences also make certain foods more common in each region. Hokkaido used to have a lot more lamb/sheep than today, but they were once an important food source. Dairy products from Hokkaido appear to have the most cache. Aomori is famous for apples, and Japanese-style sweets like wagashi will incorporate apples (or apple flavor) into their recipes. The mountains in Shizuoka make it a good place to grow tea. Ume seem to grow well around Wakayama, so that area is famous for umeboshi. Kochi is good for growing yuzu, though they can do reasonably well even in the Kanto area.

Having begun to stock my kitchen with the staple seasonings of Japanese cooking and a copy of the excellent Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, I have started to wonder about some of the holes in my knowledge of japanese cuisine. The book is of course an excellent guide, but I was struck by a thought when Tsuji mentioned that his book focuses on the cooking of Osaka. I realized I had no idea how regional japanese cooking was. Geographically, it isn't much smaller than countries like Italy or France, which despite their small size are very regional.

How much do seasonings, techniques, emphasis, etc vary from region to region in Japan? Could it be said that is a backbone to Japanese cooking present in every regional variation? Does it make sense to conceptualize "Japanese cooking" as a whole, or is more about the collection of different regional contributions?

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[Hiroyuki]

While there are regional differences as Jason described, there are major differences between Kanto and Kansai, as I described here.

Does it make sense to conceptualize "Japanese cooking" as a whole, or is more about the collection of different regional contributions?

I personally think that the former is true. Wherever you go in Japan, you will see that such basic seasonings as soy sauce, mirin, sake, and miso are invariably used and only the ingredients are different due to the local availability of foods.

[rykomatsu]

I think this in and of itself is an extremely intriguing topic and the answer (I don't think there's a right or wrong answer for the most part) gives insight as to why Japanese culinary culture is second to none (ok ok I'm biased lol) in the world when it comes to variety and regionalization. It also depends on who you ask, as a lot of people will see it as "let's see how many different ways you can prepare one thing" and group all fish into one category to give you a very simplified view of things.

So in this simplified description, I'll focus a little on a class of seasonings called gyosho- (魚醤）or uoshoyu (魚醤油）. Literally translated, it's basically fish soy sauce. However, it's prepared slightly differently than soy sauce. There's 2 main ones in Japan; one heralds from Akita prefecture and the other from Ishikawa prefecture. Akita faces the Pacific Ocean and Ishikawa faces the Sea of Japan. The one from Ishikawa is called Ishiru （いしる）and is made from sardine and squid organs and what not that are fermented under salt. The one from Akita is called Shottsuru (しょっつる） and is made from Sandfish (and is also Akita's Prefectural Fish, much like Golden Poppy is California's state flower).

The flavor is different, but both have the distinct fermented aroma that spreads when you consume each. From one person's view, you can obviously say "well it's just a different take on 2 different things". Another view you can take on it is convergent evolution of the culinary culture based on the natural resources available to the people of those regions. They're still both Japanese and would be classified as such. But that's not to say both can be readily bought all across Japan. Distribution across Japan is definitely there because they have an amazing freight system compared to the US. But production doesn't occur in the same place because of regional differences.

With a very rapid freight system in Japan, though, the regional differences start to distribute a little more across Japan, but at the same time, you have a necessity to have chefs who also know how to prepare them and a lot of times that stays rather localized so while the ability certainly exists for regional specialties to lose that "status", it hasn't happened as rapidly as one might expect.

Personally, I'd view "Japanese cooking" as a whole with subtle to distinct differences due to regional contributions. The one area of Japan I might see as otherwise might be Okinawa, but that's a stretch to an extent.

Edited September 16, 2007 by rykomatsu (log)