Kiritanpo
きりたんぽDishOct to Dec
Kiritanpo is Akita's pounded rice, packed round a cedar stick, grilled and cut into a chicken hot pot, and it suits anyone who wants a warming meal on a cold night. The trade-off is that it is a dish of the new-rice season, so the festivals and the home pots cluster in autumn.
The name
kiritanpo
切りたんぽTanpo is the padded tip of a practice spear, which the grilled rice resembles, and kiri means cut, for the lengths the rice is cut into for the pot.
japanese
Nipponica and the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten both give the spear-tip reading; the agriculture ministry likens the rice to a cattail head and gives the same sense of cut lengths.
Where to eat Kiritanpo · 2 places
- Odate and Kazuno
The dish's home, with rival festivals.
Kiritanpo comes from Odate and Kazuno in northern Akita. The agriculture ministry says charcoal burners and loggers working in the mountains mashed their leftover rice onto skewers, grilled it and cooked it with chicken and vegetables. The Nipponica encyclopedia adds a story of a lord's inspection visit to Hanawa, when villagers served the grilled rice on cedar sticks and named it on the spot, and it credits a restaurant in Noshiro with first selling it in the early Showa era.
The pot is built on a chicken-bone broth seasoned with soy sauce, with chicken, burdock, maitake, konnyaku noodles, scallions and seri, the Japanese parsley that goes in last. The chicken that belongs in it is Hinai-jidori. The original Hinai breed was protected as a national treasure and could not be eaten, and a crossbred line restored the taste.
Odate holds the Honba Odate Kiritanpo Festival and Kazuno the Kiritanpo Hassho Festival, and both cities claim to be its home. Around Odate, households gather round a kiritanpo pot at the end of each rice harvest.
Worth knowing
- Ask whether the pot uses Hinai-jidori, which is the chicken Akita cooks consider the proper one.
Quick answers about Kiritanpoよくある質問
What does kiritanpo mean?
Tanpo is the padded tip of a practice spear, which the grilled rice on its stick resembles, and kiri means cut, for the short lengths that go into the pot.
Where does kiritanpo come from?
The agriculture ministry places its origin in Odate and Kazuno in northern Akita Prefecture.
How do you order Kiritanpo?
Order kiritanpo nabe for the hot pot. Some places also grill the sticks and brush them with miso, sansho miso or walnut soy sauce.
When is Kiritanpo in season?
Kiritanpo: Autumn, when the new rice comes in, and through the cold months in Akita's restaurants.
Where can you eat Kiritanpo in Japan?
Places we list for Kiritanpo include Doma-nin, Kappo Momoya.