Tohoku in Summer

Oirase Gorge (奥入瀬渓流) in Aomori Prefecture is widely considered one of Japan's most beautiful river gorges, designated a National Special Place of Scenic Beauty and Natural Monument and protected as part of the Towada-Hachimantai National Park, with around 14 kilometres of the Oirase River running from the outlet of Lake Towada through a forest of beech, Japanese oak, maple and white cedar. The forest holds over 200 varieties of moss covering the rocks and tree trunks, with numerous named waterfalls cascading down the basalt walls into the river, including the 7 metre tall and 20 metre wide Choshi Otaki at the lake end of the gorge as well as the Kumoi-no-taki, Soryu and Tomoshiraga falls. Summer brings the densest forest canopy and the fullest waterfall flow after the spring snowmelt, with the cool air within the gorge providing natural relief from the summer heat of the surrounding lowlands. A walking path and a parallel road run the full length of the gorge but the most popular section for hikers is the 9 kilometres between Nenokuchi and Ishigedo, which takes around 2.5 hours and passes most of the named waterfalls. From Hachinohe Station on the Tohoku Shinkansen, the JR Bus Oirase-go runs to the Lake Towada area in around 2 hours 15 minutes at ¥3,050, with bus stops at Yakeyama, Ishigedo and Nenokuchi along the gorge for hop on, hop off access.

A 50 minute pleasure boat cruise from the pier at Yasumiya on the southern shore of Lake Towada (十和田湖) runs either on a circular route around the southern bays or one way to Nenokuchi at the Oirase Gorge outlet on the east shore, with the boat giving access to dramatic cliff views of the Nakayama and Mikura peninsulas that are difficult to see from land and operating mid April to early November at ¥1,650 for adults. The lake is the largest crater lake on Honshu and the third deepest in Japan at around 327 metres, with deep blue water known as "Towada Blue" and forested caldera walls rising steeply on all sides inside a national park designated as Towada National Park on 1 February 1936 and renamed Towada-Hachimantai in July 1956, when the Hachimantai area was added and jointly designated with the Oirase Gorge that drains from it as a National Special Place of Scenic Beauty and Natural Monument. The bronze Maiden Statue by Kotaro Takamura unveiled near Yasumiya on 21 October 1953, having been commissioned as the project marking the 15th anniversary of the park's designation is the most recognised landmark on the lakeshore, with canoeing and SUP tours available at Utarube on the east shore. From Hachinohe Station on the Tohoku Shinkansen the JR Bus Oirase-go runs to Yasumiya in around 2 hours 15 minutes at ¥3,050, passing through the Oirase Gorge on the way and making the two sites natural companions for a summer visit.

Jodogahama Beach (浄土ヶ浜) on the Pacific coast at Miyako in Iwate Prefecture is one of Japan's Top 100 Swimming Spots and a National Place of Scenic Beauty within the Sanriku Fukko National Park, the park's "Fukko" or "Recovery" name reflecting the 2011 tsunami that destroyed the rest house and tourist facilities since rebuilt. The shoreline is defined by jagged white rhyolite rock columns formed around 44 million years ago and shaped by wind and waves, with the rocks sheltering a calm, clear inlet of deep blue water and a white pebble shore that the monk Reikyō Ryūkō of Joan-ji Temple in Miyako compared in 1680 to the Buddhist Pure Land paradise, giving the beach its name. The swimming beach is open in summer from mid July to mid August, with Sappa-bune traditional fishing boats running 20 minute tours into the Blue Cave for around ¥1,500 and the larger Miyako Umineko Maru sightseeing boat circling the wider coastline in 40 minutes alongside black tailed gulls fed by passengers, while sea kayaking and SUP tours operate from the beach through the warmer months. From Tohoku Shinkansen Morioka Station the 106 Express bus to Miyako Station takes around 1 hour 35 minutes, with the Iwate Kenpoku Bus then running to the Oku-Jodogahama stop closest to the beach in around 20 minutes for ¥250.

ホヤ (Hoya) is the ingredient Tohoku will defend hardest, and summer is its season. It is a sea squirt rather than a shellfish, farmed on ropes off the Miyagi and Iwate coast, roughly four years from seeding to harvest, and it looks like a knobbled orange rock until it is opened. The flavour has been described as carrying all five tastes at once and that is not far off. It is intensely briny and distinctly bitter, with a sweetness underneath that arrives late. It is eaten raw as sashimi, dressed with vinegar as 酢ホヤ, or dried and salted. Freshness decides everything, because hoya turns quickly and a bad one is unpleasant, which is most of the reason people outside the region are wary of it. Miyagi produces the large majority of the national crop and eating it in Ishinomaki or Kesennuma in July is the only fair test of it.

Sea urchin from the Sanriku coast of Iwate and Miyagi peaks through summer, and Tohoku's version of it is about how it is caught and what it goes into. At 久慈 (Kuji) in northern Iwate the 北限の海女 (hokugen no ama), the northernmost free divers in Japan, still work the shallows for uni through July, August and September, diving without tanks from small boats, and the Kosode coast centre runs demonstrations at weekends through the season. The other thing Tohoku does with it is いちご煮 (Ichigo Ni), a clear broth of sea urchin and abalone from 八戸 (Hachinohe) in Aomori, named because the poached roe suspended in the cloudy soup was thought to look like wild strawberries. Hokkaido's uni is kelp fed and rich and eaten over rice. Sanriku's is cleaner, and it gets cooked.

だだちゃ豆 (Dadachamame) is an heirloom edamame grown only around 鶴岡 (Tsuruoka) in the Shonai plain of Yamagata, cultivated there since the Edo period. The name comes from local dialect for father. Shipping starts in late July and runs to mid September, with the peak falling just after the old Obon in mid August, and a run of named varieties comes in sequence through those weeks rather than all at once. The pods are ugly, short and fuzzy with usually two beans rather than three, and they carry markedly more alanine and free amino acids than ordinary edamame, which is measurable rather than a matter of opinion and is why the sweetness and the savoury depth are stronger. Tsuruoka has made 8 August its own dadachamame day. They are boiled in salted water in the pod and eaten with nothing else, and they are sold the morning they are picked because the sugars start falling within hours.