12 Popular Dishes That Are Special To Hokkaido, Japan

At the far north of the Japanese archipelago, the island of Hokkaido stands out for a number of reasons. It's the largest of Japan's 47 prefectures, the northernmost, coldest, and least-densely populated, with just 5.4 million people on 22% of Japan's total land area, according to the Ministry of the Environment. But Hokkaido also contains a quarter of Japan's total farmland, more than any other region in Japan, thanks to major efforts in the 19th century to convert the island into an agricultural hub. Since then, Hokkaido has earned a reputation as Japan's "larder," the nation's major producer of rice, dairy, and other important agricultural products, in addition to top-notch seafood. Hokkaido is also one of the only parts of Japan inhabited and influenced by the indigenous Ainu people.

Given all these factors, it should come as no surprise that Hokkaido has developed a food culture like nowhere else in Japan. While Hokkaido meat, seafood, and vegetables have a reputation for quality, the island is also the birthplace of many Japanese dishes found nowhere else. Here are 13 of the most unique dishes of Hokkaido cuisine.

You might be surprised to learn that the fluffy, Western-influenced Japanese bread rolls known as "Hokkaido milk bread" outside Japan are not from Hokkaido at all. That name originated from advertising shokupan (bread rolls) made with Hokkaido milk, legendary in Japan for its quality and flavor. The secret to Hokkaido milk is Hokkaido itself: the island's cool weather, wide-open fields and fresh air provide an ideal environment for cows. Hokkaido milk is exceptionally rich and sweet, with a high-fat content and natural notes of vanilla.

In "Milk," food historian Mark Kurlansky describes how Japan's 19th-century government saw milk as the key to a strong and healthy population, leading to the establishment of Hokkaido's first dairy in 1876. According to SakuraCo, Hokkaido now produces more than half of Japan's milk, and Hokkaido milk is not only sold for drinking but used in a range of commercial products, including Bilk, a beer with 30% milk content. One of the most-popular treats made from Hokkaido milk is "soft cream" (soft-serve ice cream), sometimes flavored with other famous Hokkaido agricultural products like lavender or melon. Some Hokkaido dairies even let visitors churn and enjoy their own ice cream just hours after the cow was milked.

In Japanese, "karaage" is a general term for ingredients dredged in flour and starch and deep-fried, but in English, this word refers specifically to karaage fried chicken. Across Japan and beyond, chicken karaage is usually made from small pieces of sometimes un-marinated boneless chicken, especially the thighs. But karaage is not Japan's only style of fried chicken. In Hokkaido, you'll find a local style called zangi, which differs from karaage in a number of ways.

Unlike karaage, zangi is typically made with larger chicken pieces (sometimes bone-in), and the meat is marinated in ginger and soy sauce for additional flavor. The breading for zangi is also thicker than karaage; some recipes use a wet batter containing eggs, or dip the meat in egg before the flour and starch. Invented around 1960 at a restaurant called Torimatsu in the city of Kushiro, which is still in operation, zangi quickly spread across Hokkaido. Today, restaurants sell variations made with other proteins like octopus or fish, as well as a dish called zantare (zangi drizzled with sweet and sour sauce), which also originated in Kushiro a few decades after the original zangi.

From its origins in India, curry (kari) reached Japan in a modified form through trade with Britain and was modified further into something uniquely Japanese. Today, Japanese curry is so popular that it has come to be regarded as one of Japan's national dishes. In most of Japan, curry is thickened with a flour roux and served alongside rice, but Hokkaido has a unique version, thanks to the island's love for warm soups in the wintertime. In Hokkaido, curry is made in the form of a soup simply known as supu-kari, soup curry, with rice served in a separate bowl. Fragrant with spices, soup curry often contains large pieces of meat and vegetables like okra, lotus root, corn, and potato. 

A resemblance to the curry soups of South and Southeast Asia is no coincidence, as these dishes are believed to have inspired the invention of soup curry at a Sapporo restaurant called Ajanta in 1970s. Sapporo is still the center of soup curry in Hokkaido, and restaurants there now serve endless variations with customizable toppings and flavorings; you can even find soup curry made with Hokkaido lavender. Soup curry is not typically a breakfast dish, so Hokkaido residents were puzzled in 2020 when then-Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga claimed to have lost weight on a "morning soup curry diet," according to Japan Forward.

If you get hungry during long-distance train travel in Japan, you can enjoy an ekiben: A special bento box lunch sold to travelers at train stations, with contents that vary depending on the location, as they showcase regional specialty foods. One of the best-known of these local ekiben delicacies is Hokkaido's ikameshi, originally served at Mori Station in the island's south. Literally meaning "squid rice," ikameshi is a whole squid stuffed with rice, cooked in a sweet/salty soy sauce braise and cut into slices for serving. A blend of regular and sticky rice is used to keep the filling from hardening when the ikameshi gets cold.

Ikameshi is said to have been first prepared around 1941 as part of rations for the Japanese army during World War II. The edible Japanese flying squid was being caught in large numbers at the time, while rice was being carefully rationed, so ikameshi made use of a common ingredient and allowed for the easy portioning of rice to individual soldiers. With travelers in the postwar era demanding rice in their train lunches despite food shortages, ikameshi became ideal as an ekiben food, which led to its fame spreading across Japan as Hokkaido tourism boomed in the 1950s and 60s.

The Japanese suffix -yaki refers to grilling or pan-frying ingredients to order and is also found in the names of other cooking methods like teppanyaki, so you might translate robatayaki as "fireside grilling." It's a style of barbecue in which various ingredients, especially Hokkaido's famous seafood, are cooked over hot coals using a traditional sunken hearth called an irori, which resembles a stone-lined pit on the floor. Today, some robatayaki restaurants have the grill elevated on a dais instead.

Robatayaki, or robata for short, was originally prepared aboard the boats of Hokkaido fishermen, using wood charcoal enclosed in stone boxes. These fishermen later brought the custom of communal grilling into their homes, where the irori was the central family gathering place, also used for heating and brewing tea. When the first robata restaurant opened in 1950, this style of eating was already popular in Hokkaido homes and would remain so until gas, and electric stoves became widespread. At some robata restaurants today, servers still pass food to customers on a wooden paddle resembling a fisherman's oar.

Long before agriculture transformed Hokkaido, the island's inhabitants subsisted mainly off the sea. The indigenous Ainu, who have called Hokkaido home since before the arrival of the Japanese, traditionally hunted whales and made use of every part of the animal in their cuisine, salting whale flesh and blubber (fat) for preservation and simmering it in soups. The Ainu custom of making whale soup was later passed down to Hokkaido's Japanese fishermen, who came to associate whales with good luck and the prosperity of a good catch. As a result, New Year festivities in Hokkaido fishing villages once included the eating of kujira-jiru, a soup made with salted whale blubber, tofu, vegetables, and a vegetable starch jelly called konjac. Blubber has a creamy, oily texture; its flavor can be fishy, but also has a nuttiness that some compare with a crispy fried egg.

Today, kujira-jiru is a rare delicacy, but it can still be found in some cities in Hokkaido during New Year and year-round at a restaurant in the southern port city of Hakodate. Popular media has helped to increase interest in the historical origins of Hokkaido's cuisine, like the acclaimed historical fiction manga series Golden Kamuy, which prominently features Ainu whale soup. As Hokkaido's rich food culture continues to evolve, the island's people preserve their traditional dishes while embracing new trends and innovations.