10 things to know about Osaka’s culinary culture

Japan’s staple grain has played a starring role in Osaka’s history, both as a foodstuff and, even more importantly, as a medium of economic exchange. Rice has been used as a means of tax payment in Japan since ancient times, but it was in the Edo period (1603–1867) that the country’s economy became truly rice-centric. Not only taxes, but the salaries of the entire samurai class were paid in rice. Trade in rice, and its exchange for cash, became key economic functions – both of which were centred on Osaka, the country’s main mercantile hub.

Prices at the government-sanctioned rice exchange in Dojima determined the value of the grain nationwide, and many of Osaka’s rice brokers – the middlemen who greased the wheels of commerce – made fortunes much in the same manner as today’s stock traders. The rice-based economy didn’t only enrich merchants, however: it made the grain widely available across society, fostering a distinctive culinary culture.

The Dojima Rice Exchange is long gone, its site now marked by a monument designed by architect Tadao Ando in the shape of a grain of rice. The prosperity and splendour engendered by the rice trade can, however, be felt at the historic granaries of the Konoike Shinden Kaisho in Higashi-Osaka, built in the early 1700s by a wealthy merchant to expand rice production to the east of the city.

Kombu kelp has been an integral component of Japanese food culture for centuries, and is perhaps the most essential ingredient in Osaka’s cuisine. It assumed this position during the Edo period, when the kitamaebune shipping route connected Osaka to Hokkaido. Traders brought kelp harvested from the cold waters of the northern island back to Osaka, where the city’s cooks embraced its distinctive umami flavour, creating kombu dashi, the kelp stock that remains a foundational element in many of today’s typical Japanese foods.

Osaka’s wealthy merchants and other discerning gourmands took a particular liking to the robust flavour of southern Hokkaido’s makombu (‘true kombu’) – as opposed to the more refined, lighter Rishiri kombu, the variety preferred in Kyoto cooking. In the 1800s, a cuisine built around awasedashi, an umami-heavy broth derived from makombu and katsuobushi (dried, fermented and smoked skipjack flakes), eventually took shape in the high-end restaurants frequented by the elite, and later spread to the entire city.

To learn more about this history, visit the Osaka Kombu Museum, run by the century-old kelp purveyor Kombu Doi. Here you’ll find out how the kelp is harvested and processed, as well as how natural kelp beds and forests are preserved today. You can also participate in dashi-making workshops that’ll help you recreate authentic Osaka flavours at home.

Osaka is also known as Naniwa, a name that translates literally to ‘fish garden’ – a reference, of course, to the abundance of seafood in Osaka Bay. The city has always had a real appetite for fish, and throughout most of its history that hunger was more than satisfied by the local supply. Sea bream, mackerel and conger eel count among the most commonly used species in Osaka cuisine, whereas fugu (blowfish) and hamo (daggertooth pike conger) are considered seasonal delicacies.

Some 60 percent of all fugu eaten in Japan is consumed in Osaka, where the fish is typically eaten as sashimi (tessa) or in a hot pot dish called detchiri. Fugu is in season in winter, whereas summertime calls for hamo – a type of sea eel that grows up to two metres long and is considered ferocious and difficult to prepare, but with fatty and tender flesh that makes it worth the struggle.

Today, the many small ports along the coast of Sennan in southern Osaka are some of the best places to get a feel for local fishing culture. For example, the Izumisano Outdoor Seafood Market remains a key source of species like blue crab, black cow-tongue and shako (Japanese mantis shrimp), which are auctioned off there and delivered to restaurants throughout the area and beyond. Part of the day’s catch can be savoured fresh at the market’s restaurants.

The lush and mountainous areas to the north, east and south of today’s Osaka city were traditionally its agricultural heartland, where the cultivation of not only rice but also a wide variety of vegetables flourished throughout the Edo period. Many different types of turnips, radishes, onions, cucumbers, eggplants, pumpkins and more came to colour Osaka cuisine and enhance both its flavour palette and nutritional value.

Among the region’s more distinctive traditional vegetables are ebi imo, a Japanese taro known for its shrimp-like appearance and culinary desirability, particularly in seasonal cuisine; the long and slender moriguchi daikon radish; and the kintoki carrot, noted for its deep crimson colour and sweet fragrance that matches its mellow flavour.

While the conversion of farmland into residential land throughout Osaka Prefecture and the influx of imported vegetable varieties in the post-World War II era nearly killed off local greens such as kema cucumber and tennoji turnip, these and other traditional Osaka vegetables have enjoyed a renaissance recently. Rebranded as ‘Naniwa vegetables’ (see below), their value is being rediscovered by Osaka’s chefs, with a steadily growing number of restaurants now putting these heirloom greens front and centre.

When Osaka emerged as Japan’s commercial centre in the early 1600s, the values of diligence and thrift – the guiding principles of the city’s merchant class – permeated society. In the world of food as well, frugality took hold, inspiring a philosophy that remains a core element of Osaka’s culinary culture.

Shimatsu no kokoro, the ethos of letting nothing go to waste, is a practical axiom that has over the centuries guided Osaka’s chefs not only to think sustainably and honour the bounty of land and sea, but also to develop recipes that allow every piece of every ingredient to be used without sacrificing flavour or presentation.

In traditional Osaka cuisine, it’s a rule rather than an exception to utilise the peel and ends of vegetables and the bones, skin and intestines of fish. One dish representative of this philosophy is hamokawa zakuzaku, in which the skin of the hamo sea eel – left over after the flesh is removed and used for surimi – is lathered with teriyaki sauce, grilled, and mixed with fresh cucumber and sweet and sour vinegar sauce to make a refreshing summer snack.

Another frugal Osaka speciality is horumon, or off-cuts of beef or pork grilled over charcoal. Rather than disposing of a butchered animal’s guts, generations of local carnivores have perfected the cutting and seasoning of offal, making it an integral element of the city’s meat-eating culture.

Osaka’s traditional vegetables, collectively known as Naniwa vegetables after one of the city’s alternate names, have in recent years made a triumphant return to the spotlight. These heirloom greens, many of which have been cultivated in what is now Osaka Prefecture for centuries, owe much of their newfound popularity to chef and food journalist Shuzo Ueno.

Founder of the influential Kigawa kappo restaurant – a counter-only establishment where kaiseki-style haute cuisine is served in a comparatively casual setting – Ueno spent many long years doing historical research and travelling to farms around the prefecture in an effort to rediscover and celebrate these vegetables.

As Ueno successfully reintroduced Naniwa vegetables to the market, his work eventually garnered support from local governments, which introduced certification programmes and backed the development of farms focused on heirloom greens.

Today, some two dozen types of vegetables have been certified as Naniwa vegetables, and many of them can be savoured at a growing number of restaurants throughout the prefecture, including several featured in this guide. To purchase Naniwa vegetables directly from farmers, visit Hirano Farm in Suita, where fresh produce grown on the expansive property is sold to the public every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning. The farm also organises a monthly farmer’s market.