The reason why Hokkaido rice is delicious.

There is a reason why Hokkaido rice is delicious.

Why??
For example,

“Because the temperature has risen, Hokkaido rice has become delicious.”

I wonder if that story is true?

Then, why is there a major rice-producing area in the Piedmont region of northern Italy? The wind from the Alps must be cold.
Besides, hasn't Hokkaido rice become delicious since before the temperature rose like this?

Don't you think so??

In the first place, is Honshu rice the same as Hokkaido rice?
If you grow Koshihikari in Hokkaido, does it have the same characteristics?

Don't you think so?

Let's unravel the truth about the deliciousness of Hokkaido rice.

16 years ago, in 2006, Hokkaido rice won its first gold medal at the Rice Taste Evaluation Contest. (The Rice Taste Evaluation Contest is the largest competition to compete for the deliciousness of new rice.)
That was a great joy for everyone involved with Hokkaido rice.
It was the beginning of the delicious Hokkaido rice we have today.
It was a gold medal for rice created by producers who used their sense of crisis—that Hokkaido rice might end up being used only for commercial or processing purposes if they didn't make rice that could be harvested even in the cold and rice that was delicious enough to be accepted throughout Japan—as the driving force to make truly delicious rice.

The history of how everyone came to be able to eat rice, a staple food, deliciously was a long one.
The Kitamaebune ships of the Edo period were originally a means to transport rice from Tohoku to large cities like Tokyo and Osaka. As time went on, they also began to bring rice from Hokuriku to Hokkaido.
People live where there is rice. The people who came to Hokkaido tried rice cultivation. Because if you have rice, you can manage somehow.
There are three records of the first rice cultivation in Hokkaido in the 1600s, and one of them is said to have started at the end of the 1600s in what is now Hokuto City under the Matsumae Domain in southern Hokkaido.
But alas. It didn't go well, and it took about 150 years for rice cultivation to spread in southern Hokkaido. Good grief. It took 150 years to finally get there.
After that, in 1873, rice cultivation in a cold region finally succeeded in Shimamatsu in central Hokkaido, and rice cultivation spread throughout Hokkaido. Yes!!
During those 150 years, did the varieties that failed to grow in the Edo period change to adapt to the land of Hokkaido?
However, the joy of being able to grow rice was short-lived, and Hokkaido rice was said to be not delicious. Yes, that's right, an era of not-so-delicious rice continued.
And Hokkaido rice even came to be called “Yakkaido rice” (troublesome rice). Good grief.
What will you do, Hokkaido rice!!
The human passion to eat and make delicious rice has enhanced research and technology. Hokkaido is different from Honshu.
People who have developed rice suitable for land with higher latitudes and different sunshine hours than Honshu, and who have devised, learned, and improved their technology, will produce Hokkaido rice that everyone is happy to say is delicious!

Knowing that, I feel a sense of endearment for the rice I eat as a matter of course.

Now, this weekend, I visited one of the producers who feels a full sense of endearment for rice.

This is Mr. Kaeriyama of Kaeriyama Farm in Shiriuchi Town, southern Hokkaido.
He produces five types of rice. Now is the time for raising seedlings before rice planting.

“It's the same as with humans. You have to give them strength when they are small so that they can put their roots in the ground and grow up healthy when they are on their own.”

Ah, I was deeply moved that the deliciousness of Hokkaido rice is thanks to producers like this.

I will add fertilizer to the rice fields and fill them with water.
Grow healthy seedlings,
and keep chemicals to a minimum later on.
Rice being grown with careful attention.
The season has begun, leading up to the day of harvest when the ears of rice hang heavy.

Wishing that this year's weather will be kind to the rice, I left southern Hokkaido,
and for lunch today, I had pizza with oysters and chives, and sausage and chives, using Mr. Kaeriyama's rice flour.
Oysters and chives are specialties of Shiriuchi Town.

While remembering the delicious things in southern Hokkaido,
I cooked Juicy for dinner.
Huh? Is that the one from Okinawa??

Yes. The Okinawa soba and Juicy atOkinawaya Kochinda, which opened in April in Nanae Town,where Onuma Park is located, were so delicious that I couldn't reproduce them exactly, so I tried making Juicy in a way that was easy for me.
With Rausu kelp, dried shiitake mushrooms, canned tuna, and carrots. The rice is Yumepirika.
I'll make a recipe.

As long as you have rice, you can manage!

This is the Instagram of Kanako Horiuchi, the landlady of Okinawaya Kochinda.