Toukibi Meshi

Toukibi-meshi is a staple food from the Takachiho region, served alongside barley rice. Dried corn kernels, cracked with a foot-powered mill, are mixed into rice and cooked together. The corn's nutty aroma and color give the rice a heartier character than plain rice alone, and the dish is also known as "toukibi gohan."

Rice is mixed with corn at roughly ten to twenty percent of the volume, cooked with a bit more water than usual and a pinch of salt. Some cook the corn together with the rice from the start, while others parboil the corn first and add it in afterward. It's best eaten fresh, since the flavor fades once it cools, so portions for midday and evening were reportedly shaped into rice balls while still hot, and everyday portions were often grilled over an open hearth.

Corn was reportedly sown in fields or on cleared mountain plots in summer, harvested by mid-autumn, then hung under the eaves of a stable and left to dry slowly in the cold mountain wind, said to concentrate its flavor. In an era when rice was scarce, mixing in cracked corn is said to have stretched the rice supply and helped fill people's stomachs, a practical solution that spread through the region. Amid a diet otherwise dominated by barley rice year-round, this dish's aroma and color are said to have brought a welcome change to the table.