22 Kinds of Local Cuisine from Mikurashima Island Published and Recorded With the Help of Locals on the Island!

The preservation society for local cuisine on Mikurashima Island has recorded traditional island recipes which are no longer recreated in everyday modern life. By doing this, the society hopes to pass recipes to the next generation and hopes to make these recipes more relevant to the lives of the local people.

This year, the society asked for help from the local people delegating work such as choosing the menu, cooking, photography, and publishing recipes on food recipe site CookPad. There were 10 people in total who helped. The older generation who was familiar with these traditional local recipes teamed up with the younger generation who were more familiar with the internet and technology.

There were more than 30 different kinds of recipes that were considered to make the menu, but due to certain ingredients becoming difficult to obtain because of the season and environment, only 22 kinds of traditional foods made the cut. All 22 recipes are simple and easy to recreate.

For example, the picture above shows shiramimi mushroom stew. Shiramimi is one of type of mushroom that is available on the island and stewing it allows the mushroom to soak up all the flavor from the broth, creating a rich flavor. It is also enjoyed fried as tempura.

In addition to shiramimi mushrooms, other ingredients include everyday items such as shimeji mushrooms, scallions, pork ribs, making it a comparatively easy recipe to reproduce in your own kitchen.

The cooks also tried making konnyaku from raw sweet potato, using a recipe that was left by the mothers in the island when they sensed creating this konnyaku would come to an end around 30 years ago. Mikurashima Island's potatoes are quite thick, resulting in a beautiful, white-colored consistency. The island is blessed with high quality water, making for the perfect konnyaku.

Many traditional foods played an important part as preserved foods when distribution channels weren't well developed as they are today. That's why certain foods include drying out ingredients for three days, and making records of this was quite difficult. However, as instructions are readily available on the web, many people have commented saying they would like to try these recipes out for themselves.

The recipes created here are available on the recipe website CookPad
（https://cookpad.com/kitchen/48080558）.
We hope that many of you will enjoy and become familiar with traditional foods on Mikurashima Island.