Nihon Chomiryo Tabi
Start with these 35 seasonings from Hokkaido in total
Hokkaido is the island of kombu. About 95% of all kombu harvested in Japan comes from here, and the flavor changes with the stretch of coast it grew on. Rausu is deep and full, Rishiri is clear, and Hidaka softens quickly when simmered. They all go by the same name, but kombu from different waters is better treated as a different seasoning altogether.
Salt works the same way. In Wakkanai, at the northern tip of Japan, seawater is still boiled down into salt. Then there are the grilling sauces, which came about because people needed a way to eat mutton. Kombu, salt and sauce: all three came out of the sea and out of the settling of this island.
- About 95% of Japan's kombu comes from Hokkaido
- Rausu, Rishiri and Hidaka: three dashi shaped by ocean currents
- A sauce culture born out of eating mutton
Why Hokkaido kombu tastes different depending on where it grew
Kombu takes on completely different qualities depending on the sea it grows in. The coastline of Hokkaido faces the cold Oyashio current on the Pacific side, warm currents moving north along the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk, and the meeting of warm and cold water from Funka Bay through the Tsugaru Strait. Each of these waters has its own character, and that carries straight into the kombu.
Rausu kombu is strong in both flavor and aroma, giving a deep golden dashi. Rishiri kombu has firmer flesh but yields a clear, salt-forward dashi, which is why it has long been favored in Kyoto cooking where you do not want color in the broth. Hidaka kombu softens as it simmers, so you can eat it as an ingredient after taking the dashi.
For your first bag, go with Hidaka. It is reasonably priced, and if things go wrong you can just simmer it and eat it. Rausu is expensive. Some 170g packages run over 5,000 yen, which is not the kombu for your everyday miso soup. Do you want a broth that stays clear, do you want depth, or do you want to eat the kombu afterward? Choose the origin by working backward from that question and you will rarely go wrong.
The kombu road and the Kitamaebune
During the Edo period, the Kitamaebune cargo ships carried Hokkaido kombu south along the Sea of Japan. From Shimonoseki through the Seto Inland Sea to Osaka, the city known as the kitchen of the country. This route came to be called the kombu road, and it extended on to Kyushu, the Ryukyus, and as far as Qing China.
The reason dashi culture took such deep root in the Kansai region is often traced to that order of delivery. The best kombu was sold in Osaka first, and what remained went on to Edo. Under that account, kombu dashi never developed as far in the Kanto region. The pairing of usukuchi (lighter in color, higher in salt) shoyu with kombu dashi in Kansai, the unusually high kombu consumption in Toyama, the kombu dishes of Okinawa: all of it survives in places where kombu was unloaded along the route.
Hokkaido kombu is the flavor of this island, and at the same time it is the source of dashi for places far from it.
Local dishes and their seasonings
- Ishikari Nabe (石狩鍋)
- A hotpot of raw salmon and vegetables simmered in a miso base. Miso goes well with the fat of the salmon, and some households finish it with butter or sake lees. Whether miso is the lead seasoning is what separates this from the sanpei-jiru that follows.
- Sanpei-jiru (三平汁)
- A soup of salt-cured salmon or herring simmered with daikon and carrot. It appears in records from the late Edo period, so the dish goes back more than two hundred years. The seasoning is the salt already in the fish. Nothing is added; the saltiness of the cured fish carries the whole dish. Versions vary by area, with shio sanpei made from cod and miso sanpei made from salted salmon.
- Jingisukan (ジンギスカン)
- Grilled mutton eaten with a dipping sauce. During the First World War, wool became hard to import, so Hokkaido began raising sheep. The dish spread out of the question of what to do with the animals once they had been sheared. Marinate before grilling, or dip after? Opinion is split on that even within Hokkaido.
Makers in Hokkaido
- Tagami Shokuhin Kogyo
In Wakkanai, they make salt from the northernmost seawater in Japan. Their Soya salt is certified under the Wakkanai brand. It is mineral-rich, with no sharp edge to the saltiness. - Bell FoodsFounded in 1947
A food maker in Sapporo. The Jingisukan sauce they released in 1956 brought the dish onto home dinner tables. Within Hokkaido, people tend to divide into Bell fans and Sorachi fans. - Fuji no Kombu
They handle kombu from Rausu. Rausu kombu ranks alongside ma-kombu as a premium grade, with a strong aroma and a deep dashi.
