STORY Top 3 famous delicacies from the Tohoku region by JNTO on 14 June 2019

The Tohoku region is the northern part of Japan’s main island, Honshu. Due to the cold winters, it is famous for various kinds of hot pot dishes and preserved food. Here we will introduce 3 of the local most belovedtraditional and authentic dishes which tourists are sure to love too.

Kiritanpo from Akita

Kiritanpo is a traditional food made with mashed cooked rice, then wrapped around skewers, and grilled over a charcoal fire. There are various stories about the origin of kiritanpo, but it can be traced back to the olden days when woodcutters used leftover rice to wrap around wood sticks and ate the dish with miso paste while working in the forest. Nowadays, kiritanpo is often eaten with savory, salty-sweet miso or added into a kiritanpo hot pot, with ingredients such as chicken, green onion, mushrooms and mitsuba (Japanese parsley). In traditional houses, people use irori (sunken hearth) to cook the hot pot in the centre of the house.

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Wanko soba from Iwate Prefecture

Soba has always been a popular dish in Iwate Prefecture. Interestingly, this dish is served with almost limitless number of small bowls of the delicious buckwheat noodles. The only limit is your stomach. You will continue to be served with the noodles until you call it quits. This tradition continues to the present day. The small serving of soba noodles in each bowl is roughly one mouthful.

It was not a gluttony or speed-eating contest to begin with, but a form of hospitality where warm, delicious cooked side dishes would also be served. Please enjoy the flavour with various toppings -- such as nameko grated, tuna, white sesame, green onion, blue shiso, and nori -- and savour your soba bowl by bowl！

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Beef tongue from Miyagi Prefecture

Gyutan refers to sliced beef tongue. A yakitori shop started to serve beef tongue on its menu as the owner did not want to waste the tongue and tail of the cow.

In local restaurants, a gyutan set meal has become the standard menu: grilled beef tongue is usually served in thick slices and paired with oxtail soup.

You can choose various seasonings for your beef tongue: salt, miso, miso-mustard, or lemon juice. Besides grilled beef tongue, there are local restaurants that also serve " gyutan stew" and "gyutan shabu-shabu".

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