There are many reasons to visit Japan, but one of the main reasons for many of us is to enjoy the food. You can find fan favorites like sushi, ramen, katsudon and okonomiyaki almost anywhere you go, and each region of Japan offers its own twists on popular dishes as well as specialties made with locally grown ingredients. In Nagano’s case, that would include soba noodles, oyaki flour buns, sanzokuyaki fried chicken and many more.
But to fully savor the local cuisine, you should take the time to learn about where it comes from and how it’s made. Take cooking classes and try your hand at cutting your own soba noodles, learn how to make miso paste at Nagano’s largest miso manufacturer, or visit one of Nagano’s many orchards to pick apples right off the tree.
What better way is there to experience Japanese cuisine than to get involved in harvesting the ingredients or cooking hearty local dishes yourself?
Learn more about these food experiences in Nagano below.
Make your own Soba Noodles
Since buckwheat grows readily around Nagano, buckwheat-based dishes have been a staple here for centuries. The most popular use of buckwheat is in soba noodles, one of the prefecture’s most well-known dishes.
Soba noodles are deceptively difficult to prepare well, so while the process of kneading, stretching and cutting the dough looks easy enough, you’ll be lucky to make noodles that look anything like a soba master’s. Regardless of how they look, however, they’re sure to taste delicious.
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Where to Take Soba-making Lessons in Nagano
All about Soba Noodles
Oyaki-making Experiences
Another specialty of Nagano, Oyaki is a flour bun filled with vegetables and seasoning and char-grilled or steamed to perfection. Popular flavors include eggplant with miso, nozawana pickles, dried daikon radish and pumpkin.
Making your own oyaki doesn’t take long, so it’s a great way to make a quick snack into a memorable experience. Pick your favorite filling and carefully wrap it in dough, then wait in anticipation as it cooks by the coals or in a steam basket. Enjoy it piping hot with nice cup of tea.
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Countryside Cooking Lessons with Local Obaa-chan
If you want to take a break from the sushi, ramen and katsudon and have some truly local fare, there’s nothing better than to try a Japanese grandma’s cooking. In Chino City at the foothills of the Yatsugatake mountains you can do just that and learn plenty about Japanese cooking in the process.
The local food here is quite different from the Japanese cuisine everybody knows and loves, featuring many unusual dishes you won’t find anywhere else. If you want to explore a more intimate side of Japan and its undiscovered flavors, you can join this cooking experience deep into the mountains of Nagano with cute grannies as your hosts.
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Details on Chino Tabi's website (English)
Make Sake at Kurabito Stay
Thanks to plentiful mountain spring water, delicious rice and a cool climate, Nagano is a perfect place for production of sake. In fact, it has the second most sake breweries of any prefecture in Japan.
Kurabito Stay is a special sake-making experience at Kitsukura Brewery in the Saku region of Nagano. Over two to three days, you stay next to the brewery at a tastefully renovated dormitory and make sake together with the brewery’s staff. And at night, you can enjoy a wide selection of local food and sake.
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Becoming a Sake Brewer at Kurabito Stay Kurabito Stay's official website (English)
Miso-making
Along with soy sauce, mirin and vinegar, miso is one of Japanese cuisine’s essential ingredients. What would miso soup be without a dollop of this umami-packed, salty seasoning?
Over 40% of Japan’s miso is produced in Nagano Prefecture, and you can make your very own miso at one of Marukome Miso’s storage warehouses. With 1.5 kilograms of steamed soy beans, rice laced with kōji mold and plenty of salt at your disposal, you can whip up a batch of miso in about 45 minutes. It takes a few months for the miso to ferment, then you can let it ferment further or put it in the fridge to keep its flavor exactly how you like it.
If you’re planning to bring your miso to another country, make sure that homemade miso paste is allowed in beforehand. Otherwise, your lovingly prepared miso may be thrown in the trash.
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Marukome miso-making experience
Mushroom-picking
It is said that Japan is home to around 4,000 to 5,000 kinds of mushrooms—about 100 of which are edible. Including popular varieties such as shiitake, nameko, maitake (hen of the woods), you can also find other rare mushrooms like matsutake and lion’s mane.
The people of Nagano have long foraged for mushrooms in the forests and mountains, and several places offer guided mushroom-picking tours, such as Guesthouse Lamp in Shinano Town.
After spending the day scouring the forest for mushrooms, your guide will prepare your haul into a feast fit for a fungi-loving king.
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Our experience picking mushrooms with Guesthouse Lamp
Details on Guesthouse LAMP's website (machine-translated).
Fruit-picking
No fruit tastes quite as sweet as fruit freshly picked from the vine (or branch). There are orchards all around the prefecture that offer fruit-picking experiences, so you can enjoy the fresh air of the outdoors and some delicious fruit to boot.
In Nagano, fruit-picking is available nearly year-round (excepting December). Depending on when you visit, you’ll be able to pick strawberries (Jan. to Jun.), blueberries (Jun. to Aug.), grapes (Sep. to Oct.), or apples (Sep. to Nov.).
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