Chubu in Summer

Tsumago-juku (妻籠宿) in the Kiso Valley of Nagano is the 42nd of 69 post towns on the historic Nakasendo (中山道), the inland mountain highway that connected Edo with Kyoto during the Edo period, and is one of the most completely preserved post town townscapes in Japan with cars banned from the main street, power lines buried and modern signage removed. The single street of Edo era wooden buildings includes the Wakihonjin Okuya, a former samurai inn rebuilt in 1877 entirely from native hinoki cypress and the place where local residents met around its hearth in 1967 to launch Japan's first town preservation movement, with the shared ¥500 ticket also covering the Tsumago Honjin main inn and the local history museum. The walking trail to the neighbouring post town of Magome-juku (馬籠宿) in Gifu takes around 2.5 to 3 hours over an 8 kilometre route through cedar forest, bamboo groves, rice paddies and country roads, with the Tateba-jaya traditional tea house at the halfway point serving free matcha to walkers and the trail well signposted in English and Japanese. The summer canopy keeps the trail cool enough to walk through July and August. From Tokyo via the JR Chuo Line Shinano Limited Express to Nagiso Station takes around 3 hours, with a 7 minute bus to Tsumago for ¥600, and the standard direction for the walk is Magome to Tsumago to minimise the uphill portion.

Shirakawa-go (白川郷) in the Hida Mountains of northwest Gifu has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995 for its preserved gassho-zukuri (合掌造り) thatched farmhouses, named after the way the steep pitched roofs designed to shed heavy winter snow resemble hands clasped in prayer, with the main village of Ogimachi holding around 59 of the historic farmhouses laid out along the eastern bank of the Shogawa River. The houses remain inhabited and the surrounding rice paddies actively cultivated, with the deep green of the summer rice fields through July and August setting the grey thatched roofs against the forested mountain slopes in a working agricultural setting that the winter snow scene tends to overshadow. The Ogimachi Castle Site Observatory above the village gives the panoramic view across the entire valley with the houses and paddies laid out below, and the Wada House at the centre of the village is the oldest and largest gassho-zukuri, a nationally designated Important Cultural Property open as a museum of village life and sericulture for ¥300. Shirakawa-go no Yu public bath in the village is open in summer. From JR Takayama Station the Nohi Bus runs to Shirakawa-go in around 50 minutes for ¥2,600 one way, with similar services from Kanazawa in around 1 hour 15 minutes at ¥2,000 one way, and advance booking recommended in peak season.

Highland vegetables are one of the distinctive parts of Nagano's summer food identity. The plateau farming areas of the prefecture, particularly around Karuizawa, Tateshina, and the Ueda basin, sit at elevations where the cool nights and warm days create ideal growing conditions for lettuce, cabbage, celery, and a wide range of other vegetables that struggle in the lowland summer heat. Nagano supplies a significant proportion of Japan's summer vegetable needs precisely because it can grow them at quality levels that the hotter lowland regions cannot match at this time of year. Finding highland vegetables fresh at a roadside stall or farmers market in Nagano in summer and understanding where they come from adds a dimension to eating them that the supermarket version cannot provide.

Nagano's buckwheat noodles, are eaten year round in the prefecture but summer brings out 冷やしそば (Hiyashi Soba), cold soba, which is the ideal way to experience the quality of Shinshu buckwheat in the warmer months. The noodles are chilled and served with a cold dipping broth alongside wasabi, spring onion, and grated daikon, and the clean, earthy flavour and firm texture of good quality Shinshu soba eaten cold in summer is one of the most satisfying noodle experiences in Japan. Nagano has a significant number of serious soba restaurants where the buckwheat is grown, milled, and made into noodles on the premises, and finding one of them in summer is worth the effort.

Fried marinated chicken is a regional speciality from the mountain areas of Nagano and one of the more distinctive chicken dishes in the Chubu region. Large pieces of chicken are marinated in garlic, soy sauce, and mirin then deep fried until crispy on the outside and juicy inside. The name, which translates roughly as mountain bandit grilling, reflects its origins in the rugged mountain communities of the prefecture where it developed as a hearty, satisfying meal. It is deeply associated with Nagano's food identity and eating it in the mountain towns of the prefecture in summer, when outdoor eating and the cool highland air make the combination particularly enjoyable, is the right context for it.

Peaches are what the Kofu basin is for in July and August. Yamanashi grows around 32 per cent of Japan's peach crop, ahead of Fukushima at 23 per cent and Nagano at 10 per cent, and the orchards run almost continuously across the valley floor around Fuefuki, Yamanashi City, Koshu and Minami Alps. The season moves through a long succession of varieties, from the early Hikawa Hakuho in June through Hakuho and Asama Hakuto at midsummer to Kawanakajima Hakuto in August, so the fruit on offer changes every couple of weeks rather than staying the same all season. Orchards across the basin run momogari, peach picking, from June to August, usually sold as a fixed price session of an hour or so, and roadside stands along the same valley roads sell fruit that was on the tree that morning. A peach eaten within a day of picking, still faintly warm, is a different thing from a supermarket peach, and this is the easiest place in Japan to notice the difference.

White shrimp is caught commercially in one place in Japan and nowhere else. The shrimp also lives in Sagami and Suruga Bays, but only Toyama Bay has the deep submarine trench that gathers it into shoals dense enough to fish, and the boats work from around April to November, which puts the heart of the season across the summer. It runs 7 to 8 centimetres long and is almost transparent in the water, turning pale pink once landed, which is where the local name 富山湾の宝石 (Toyama Wan no Hoseki), the jewel of Toyama Bay, comes from. It is eaten raw as sashimi, pressed briefly between sheets of kelp as kobujime, fried as kakiage or tempura, and served over rice as a donburi in the restaurants around Toyama Station and the fishing port at Shinminato. Every shrimp has to be peeled by hand, which is a large part of why it has stayed a local speciality instead of spreading across the country.

Water manju is the summer sweet of 大垣 (Ogaki) in southern Gifu, a town sitting on so much artesian groundwater that it calls itself the city of water. The sweet dates to the Meiji period and is made by working kuzu and warabi starch with sugar and water, pouring the mixture over a ball of sweet bean paste into small ceramic ochoko cups, steaming it and then setting it cold. Confectioners keep the filled cups in running spring water at the shop front, and the finished sweet is turned out of the cup as a small translucent dome with the dark paste showing through the middle. Shops sell it from around April to September, so it is a seasonal thing rather than a year round souvenir, and the intended way to eat one is standing at the counter on a hot afternoon rather than carrying it home. The wells and spring fed channels through the town centre are worth walking between while you are there.

Raw whitebait is the summer counterpart to the sakura shrimp that Suruga Bay is better known for. Shirasu are the fry of anchovy and sardine, and the bay's catch is a mix of three species taken by pairs of boats dragging a net between them out of 用宗 (Mochimune), 清水 (Shimizu) and 由比 (Yui). The shirasu fishery is closed only from January 15 to March 20, while the sakura shrimp seasons run from late March to early June and again from late October to late December, which leaves high summer squarely as shirasu season. Because the fry spoil within hours of landing, raw shirasu is served only where it comes ashore and only on days the boats went out, usually as a bowl of rice under a pale, faintly bitter heap of it with the boiled version alongside for comparison. Mochimune is a few minutes by local train from Shizuoka Station, and the restaurants around the harbour post each morning whether the raw version is on that day.