Jingisukan
ジンギスカンDish
Jingisukan is lamb grilled with vegetables on a domed iron pan, and at Zao Onsen it is the village's own dinner after a ski day. The trade-off is that its origin is argued over, and the version Zao tells is its own local account.
Robata, an inn and restaurant on the Zao onsen street, sets down the story the village tells. Around 1915 the head of the Japan Sheep Association, who lived in Zao, encouraged sheep farming and saw meat cooked in a helmet on a visit to Mongolia. When wool prices collapsed around 1945, the village looked for ways to sell lamb, a helmet-shaped pan was cast in Yamagata's Dogamachi foundry district around 1947, and the style people eat today had settled by about 1948.
In 1950 Zao Onsen took first place in the mountain section of a national poll of new tourist sites, the inns held tare-making classes, and from 1951 they served jingisukan as the local speciality. When the winter National Sports Festival came to Zao in 1959 the athletes ate it, and Robata says skiers then went home asking for the pans. A Retty page for Jingisukan Lodge dates the tourist poll to 1949, a year earlier.
Three places on the onsen street keep the habit going. Robata hand-cuts thick Suffolk lamb and makes a year's tare each November, aging it at least six months. Jingisukan Lodge raises its own sheep at the foot of the Uenodai slope, and Kasheru pairs it with hand-cut soba.
Worth knowing
- Book Jingisukan Lodge ahead in the season, since its own Yamagata lamb comes in limited daily quantities.
Quick answers about Jingisukanよくある質問
Did jingisukan start at Zao Onsen?
Zao Onsen says its modern form took shape there in the late 1940s, and Robata publishes that local account. The Kotobank dictionary of regional heritage notes several theories about the name and treats the dish as a Hokkaido speciality, so the question stays open.
Where can you eat jingisukan in Zao Onsen?
Robata, Jingisukan Lodge and Kasheru all serve it on or near the onsen street.
How do you order Jingisukan?
Order jingisukan by the portion. Each Zao shop makes its own tare, so ask what goes into theirs.
When is Jingisukan in season?
Jingisukan: All year, and the standard après dinner in ski season.