Rice dishes
Kashiwa Meshi
Kashiwa meshi — rice mixed with simmered chicken and burdock
Chicken and burdock, simmered together, are mixed into freshly cooked rice — named for the Kyushu word 'kashiwa' for chicken. Said to taste just as good cold, it has long traveled as a station bento.
- Origin: Fukuoka
- About 890 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
It combines kashiwa, the Kyushu word for chicken, with ingredients like burdock and carrot mixed into cooked rice. The chicken is often a Fukuoka breed prized for a firm, springy texture said to grow more flavorful the more it's chewed. Its chewy bite is said to hold up well even cold, part of why it has also long been a favorite as a station bento, and it has long been a staple in home kitchens and diners alike.
How it's made
Chicken, burdock, carrot, and other ingredients are simmered down, then folded into cooked rice. Because the flavor keeps well once it cools, it's eaten both as a home side dish and shaped into rice balls for a snack or lunch. The breast meat of the local chicken breed is also said to contain compounds thought to help support cognitive function, and mixing the cooking liquid thoroughly into the rice is said to be the key step.
Why it took this shape
It has long been a staple home dish made in kitchens and diners across the region, reportedly served on festival days and at events like school sports days. It's also been a beloved station bento for a long time, sold at major stations and department stores, which is said to have carried its reputation well beyond the prefecture and made it a dish written about in the media today, alongside its long-standing place as everyday home cooking.
Before you go
- How to use a convenience storeA quick guide to choosing rice balls and hot snacks, buying coffee, paying by cash, IC card, or tap payment, using the eat-in corner, and sorting your trash — the basics for a first visit.
- Station food and ekiben (station bento)Where and when to find ekiben (station bento) before it sells out, etiquette for eating on board, how standing soba and udon stalls work, and where to find souvenirs sold inside the station.
- Soraben and airport diningA guide to what soraben means and how it differs from ekiben, whether to buy before or after security, etiquette for eating on board, airport restaurants, and things to check before buying food souvenirs to take home.
Dishes in the same style
- Aburafu DonDeep-fried wheat gluten, shaped into a log, is simmered in a sweet-savory broth and set with egg over rice, katsudon-style — a Tome City bowl said to trace to a tofu shop's shelf-stable gluten product, later turned into a bowl dish by a local innkeeper.
- Aburi-zushiNigiri with just its surface flash-seared by torch or hot iron. Unlike Edomae's shigoto curing for keeping, the searing here is done purely for the change in aroma and fat it brings — a relatively recent way of eating sushi.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Fukuoka
- Abutte KamoSmall damselfish are salted overnight, then grilled whole, scales and innards left on — a bony fish often passed over elsewhere, but said to have caught on in Hakata Bay after a Meiji-era glut led someone to salt and grill the excess.
- Achara ZukeWhite melon, eggplant, and lotus root are pickled in a sweet vinegar spiked with red chili — the name is said to trace to the Portuguese 'achar', carried in through Hakata Bay's old trade, and an odd number of vegetables is used for Obon hospitality.
- Amagi no KawatakeA rare wild freshwater algae, found only in the Kogane River in Asakura, is dressed with sweet or three-flavor vinegar — said to have once been presented to the shogun, and now conservation efforts continue as it's listed as endangered.
- Beta MochiWheat dough is flattened, steamed, and topped with soybean flour or sweet red bean paste — named, it's said, for its resemblance to a flat local sole called 'beta', and tied to the feast marking the end of rice planting.
- Kabocha no Dango JiruA giant local pumpkin from Buzen's Mikkado district is simmered soft, then torn wheat dumplings are dropped in — the pumpkin, said to trace some 450 years back to Portuguese traders, was once a lifeline in leaner years.
- ChanraaA noodle dish said to have started at a diner in Moji, Kitakyushu. Chanpon-style noodles go into a Japanese dried-sardine broth closer to udon than to the original pork-and-seafood soup, devised, it's said, for a student who wanted Nagasaki champon but couldn't afford it.