First, one of the most famous foods of Fukuoka I recommend is Hakata tonkotsu ramen, so I will start from writing about the origin of ramen. It can be traced to the Meiji era in Yokohama. In those days, the soup was really simple and slightly salted with few ingredients. Later on ramen spread throughout Japan and tonkotsu ramen well known around Kyushu area is said to have the origin at a yatai in Kurume, Fukuoka in 1937. It seems to have been like a mixture of Nagasaki champon and Chinese noodles.
Hakata tonkotsu ramen differs from restaurant to restaurant, but usually the noodles are rather thin and straight, and the ingredients are basically a few slices of pork, some welsh onions and menma. There is a system called “kaedama” that you can have another helping of noodles with the same soup. This system originally started for busy people who work at the fish market in Nagahama, Fukuoka city. It is said that they had the noodles very thin so that they can boil quickly, and as they are thin and also get soft quickly, they reduced the amount of noodles and invented the system “kaedama” instead.
Second, another famous food of Fukuoka is Hakata mentaiko. The history of “mentaiko” is not very long. In 1948 a man who came back from old Manshu, Northern East China made it first. He ran a food shop in Nakasu, Fukuoka, and the following year, he invented mentaiko admired by the processed fish eggs he ate in Pusan, Korea, where he was from. Many people were amazed by the strangeness and the goodness of mentaiko and made a long line to buy it. However, he did not apply for a patent for mentaiko, and what is more, he even taught those who were interested how to make it. Thanks to his kindness, mentaiko took root in the traditional food culture of Fukuoka. This man is the very founder of Fukuya, Toshio Kawahara. Today mentaiko is known as food which is not only delicious with rice but also good for your health. Mentaiko is aged with red pepper, and it has much more lactic acid bacteria than yogurt, so it can regulate your bowels.
Lastly, one more good food of Fukuoka must be “motsu nabe”. It has become more popular all across Japan than before. The word “motsu” means cows’ internal organs except livers. The soup has a garlic taste and is based on miso or soy sauce. It has a lot of vegetables such as leeks and cabbages with some hot pepper on. The great joy of having motsu nabe is that you can put noodles or rice into remaining soup after you have finished the ingredients. It tastes great with flavor of motsu, vegetables, and garlic.
When I went to a supermarket in Kanagawa for the first time, I tried to see how many foods of Fukuoka I could find. Luckily I could find mentaiko, but I was really shocked because I could not find any tonkotsu ramen and most of them were soy sauce, salt, and miso based ramen. In Fukuoka, people usually have tonkotsu ramen, and I thought it was standard everywhere in Japan. I had culture shock here and felt how different food culture could be between Fukuoka and Kanagawa, which are the same country. I am sure that I will have a hard time eating completely different food from what I eat in Japan when I go to a foreign country for a long time. Although I thought it would be hard for me to get used to living here at first, I am naturally getting used to it here now, and actually I am a little sad because I feel that I am forgetting about my hometown. This is why I wrote about this topic today. I will always try to keep my hometown Fukuoka in mind.
