Enticing Food from Yamaguchi Prefecture
Surrounded by sea on three sides, Yamaguchi Prefecture lies in the western part of the mainland Honshu, Japan, and is blessed with delicious food from the mountains and sea.
The winter season in Yamaguchi Prefecture brings to mind the blowfish. Since this fish is poisonous, during the Edo period, eating it was
prohibited for a long time; however, in the Meiji period, the first prime minister of Japan, Hirobumi Ito, who was born in Yamaguchi, was impressed by its deliciousness and lifted the ban. In Shimonoseki City, number one for the amount of blowfish caught in Japan, blowfish or fugu is called fuku meaning good fortune.
Popular blowfish dishes range from blowfish sashimi presented beautifully with the skillful use of the chef’s blade, blowfish hotpot, deep-fried blowfish, congealed blowfish, and grilled blowfish roe. Fans of the blowfish also appreciate the fish when it is dried, marinated, used as a topping for rice, or grilled. Using their dried fins to flavor sake is also popular.
Another product of interest is Japanese sake.
Yamaguchi Prefecture is surrounded by a rich natural environment and blessed with clear water and high quality rice, both of which are necessary ingredients for the production of Japanese sake, which is made in various parts of the prefecture. A type of sake has been produced using sake rice called “Saito no Shizuku,” which was developed in Yamaguchi Prefecture. The sake is popular due to its high quality and clear flavor.
In recent years, the sake from Yamaguchi Prefecture has attracted the spotlight nationwide, and Yamaguchi Prefecture is the only one in the country to have a continuing increase in the amount of Japanese sake shipments for nine years straight.
Yamaguchi Prefecture has a wide variety of other food cultivated from its rich natural environment.
Come and visit the “Country of Taste, Yamaguchi”.
For more information, please visit the YAMAGUCHI TRAVEL GUIDE website.
