An Illustrated Japan / Okinawa / Culture & Tradition
Also written: 琉球料理 · 琉球料理
Ryukyu cuisine makes heavy use of pork and kombu (kelp). Court dishes and everyday home cooking, shaped by the belief that food and medicine are one, combine to form a distinctive local food culture.
Ryukyu cuisine is built on the pharmacopoeia phrase kusui mun and nuchigusui, food is life's medicine, blending Chinese, Japanese, Southeast Asian methods into two parallel traditions of court cuisine and peasant food. Pork dominates because Chinese envoys from Ming and Qing were hosted during investiture missions, requiring pork banquets, leading to a saying Okinawans eat every part except the oink. Iconic rafute pork belly braised in awamori, black sugar, and soy for three hours derives from Chinese Dongpo rou. Kelp kombu from Hokkaido arrived via Kitamae ships, and Okinawa remains Japan's top kombu per capita consumer, using it in kubu irici stir fry and kubu jusi seasoned rice served at engagements. Court cuisine evolved for seven day entertaining of Chinese envoys, multi-course with nine appetizers, soups, stewed pork entrails, and Toubans trays with elaborate arrangement. Peasant dishes use champuru stir-fries, irichi braises, and umukuji arrowroot tempura. In Shuri's old ryotei and Naha's goat soup shops you can taste a full court set for around 6000 yen, observing four cooking categories strictly kept: agemun frying, yachimun grilling, nimun simmering, and mushitachi steaming. The base stock blends katsuobushi and pork bone. Many attribute longevity to this balance. UNESCO intangible heritage nomination efforts are ongoing. Reservations recommended for court restaurants as lunches sell out. Vegetarians should note lard is common in stir fries. Court Banquet menu sequence nine appetizers symbolizing nine virtues, second soup clearing palate, third relish. Royal family used bronze chargers, commoners banana leaf plates. Modern chef adaptations include vegan rafute mushroom. Food education classes in Shuri include making chitung meat-wrapped konbu. Sea grapes green caviar harvested by aquaculture tanks near Kunigami, shipped live in seawater. Pig rearing included Agu indigenous breed with black hair, marbled fat low cholesterol claimed. Kombucha Okinawan style unsweetened. Court Banquet menu sequence nine appetizers symbolizing nine virtues, second soup clearing palate, third relish. Royal family used bronze chargers, commoners banana leaf plates. Modern chef adaptations include vegan rafute mushroom. Food education classes in Shuri include making chitung meat-wrapped konbu. Sea grapes green caviar harvested by aquaculture tanks near Kunigami, shipped live in seawater. Pig rearing included Agu indigenous breed with black hair, marbled fat low cholesterol claimed. Kombucha Okinawan style unsweetened. Court Banquet menu sequence nine appetizers symbolizing nine virtues, second soup clearing palate, third relish. Royal family used bronze chargers, commoners banana leaf plates. Modern chef adaptations include vegan rafute mushroom. Food education classes in Shuri include making chitung meat-wrapped konbu. Sea grapes green caviar harvested by aquaculture tanks near Kunigami, shipped live in seawater. Pig rearing included Agu indigenous breed with black hair, marbled fat low cholesterol claimed. Kombucha Okinawan style unsweetened.
