Overview
The local cuisine of Okayama Prefecture is a solid combination of the wild and the historical. Drawing upon the region's culture and heritage, foods like sushi and ramen dishes take full advantage of the people's ability to adapt. Mountain vegetables get a look in with an ultra healthy dish while one of the prefecture's many noodle dishes turns out to also be one of the nation's most peculiar. Here is a simple guide to some of the regional cuisine of Okayama.
Barazushi
The colourful and tasty barazushi is a dish born out of the common folk's need to get around a feudal edict that promoted frugality by banning meals other than 'one soup, one side dish.' The result was barazushi where a lot of fish and vegetables were thrown together on top a bed of rice to make it appear as 'a single dish.'
Shino udon
At two centimetres wide and around one metre long, shino udon are a speciality of Tamashima. Thought to be the kind of udon eaten by the ascetic monks of Entsu-ji Temple between the 18th and 19th centuries, this springy noodle dish is an amazing eat. A variety of soups complete the meal, including simple dashi stock flavoured broths and slightly more modern curry ones .
Kusagina meshi
With its powerful fragrance, kusagina meshi is rice covered with the dried young buds of the kusagi plant. Found growing in the mountains, kusagi is one of Japan's many sansai mountain vegetables used in traditional cooking. Very healthy, kusagina meshi is a flavour direct from the region's mountain wilds.
Inoshishi ramen
An ingenious method of making use of the wild boar in the area, the people of Niimi in northwestern Okayama began using boar meat for their ramen. The result is inoshishi ramen, a wild infusion of the wilds of Okayama with a unique noodle broth filled with roasted boar fillets. Leaner than the usual pork, boar gives the ramen here a decidedly untamed flavour.
