Latest / Ridiculous History / Kakigōri: The Story of Japan's Famous Shaved Ice

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Kakigōri: The Story of Japan's Famous Shaved Ice · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: tuning in. My name is Ben, My name is nol Ben.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: You ever had those rolled up ice cream things? I
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: think they're kind of a rip off. I don't really
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: have a sweet tooth. We've I don't know if we've
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: ever talked about this on air, but it's it's the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: thing that haunts me. I know that I am socially
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: obligated to eat cake, for instance, when it's offer, but
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: left to my own devices, I won't really go for desserts.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I'm just I'm sweet enough. I guess well to me.
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  Speaker 1: The rolled up ice cream is a classic example of
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  Speaker 1: st aisle over substance, form over function. It's this thing
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  Speaker 1: like where they do it kind of like they do
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  Speaker 1: with the cold stone, where they mush the stuff together
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  Speaker 1: on like uh what do they call it? An anti
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  Speaker 1: grittle an icy surface of some sort. But with this one,
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  Speaker 1: they like just dump it in liquid form and then
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  Speaker 1: roll it up with like a paint scraper kind of
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  Speaker 1: thing into these little pin wheel things. And they're really
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  Speaker 1: hard to eat, and I don't understand the point of it.
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  Speaker 1: That's kind of like dipping dots. You know, there's more
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: focus on the form rather than the function. Dippin dots
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  Speaker 1: I can hang with, but they did end up sticking
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  Speaker 1: together and sort of becoming just a weird icy mass.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm not super into those either. My point is
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  Speaker 1: just that they're all still ice cream, they're just in
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: different shapes. Oh, speaking of a hundred percent, you know
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: who always gives a percent ridiculous history. It's our pal,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: you know him, you love them, super producer Casey pegram
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: percent at times. At times I didn't think it's possible.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's some real LaBouche right there. Uh, we're
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: also joined NOL. We didn't talk about this off here,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: but we're also joy by our pal Matt Frederick over
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: here shaking his head, say no, please don't put me.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Matt is literally since we're an audio podcast, literally not.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: He doesn't want to be on the show today. He's
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: not here because he wants to hear this episode. I
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: think he's just trying to get some work done in
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a quiet but he's seeking refuge knowing that we're cool
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and we're not going to throw him out right, We're
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: not gonna snitch on him right now, But before we
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: lose the thread. Here we're talking about desserts, and there's
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  Speaker 1: this there's this huge emphasis on novelty and dessert I
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: like that you brought that up. You know. Part of
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  Speaker 1: it is like the shape or the way in which
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  Speaker 1: something is consumed becomes as important as the actual thing.
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  Speaker 1: Like ring pops really just suckers, but people love that
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  Speaker 1: you can wear it like a ring, right, or like
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  Speaker 1: fruit loops. Apparently all the same flavor, different colors make
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  Speaker 1: a brain think otherwise, that's very good. Voyt. Yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: guess they are all this age. I still don't believe it,
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  Speaker 1: but I have been told this. Casey. If you heard
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  Speaker 1: anything about this, no, and I feel lied to. If
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  Speaker 1: that's the case, you feel I too. Yeah, Well, if
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  Speaker 1: that's the case, then this has in fact been Casey.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: On the case, I feel like, you know what, like
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  Speaker 1: blue fruit loops just taste blue? It's true. Why don't
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: you color blind, bend? I am colored deficient. I'm sorry,
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  Speaker 1: I'm just winging it at traffic lights. But despite not
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: having a sweet tooth myself, you know, it's hard to
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  Speaker 1: live in a world without running into desserts. A long
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: time ago, in a different life, I ran into a
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  Speaker 1: Filipino dessert called hollow hollow Have you heard of this?
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  Speaker 1: It's a kind of shaved ice or shave ice treat,
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  Speaker 1: which is often consumed. I don't know. I feel like
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  Speaker 1: it's a summer thing just because it's cold, but that
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  Speaker 1: might not be correct. Today's episode is about a specific
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  Speaker 1: Japanese dessert that, it turns out, has a much longer
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  Speaker 1: history than you might have ever imagined. Absolutely true. Let's
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: just call it what it is. It is the Japanese
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  Speaker 1: art of khaki gory. How did I do? Ben? I
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  Speaker 1: thought you did pretty well. Yeah, thanks my man. And
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  Speaker 1: it dates back uh. Some estimates put it as far
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  Speaker 1: back as the tenth or eleventh century. Right, right, kaky
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  Speaker 1: gory k a k i g o r I oh
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  Speaker 1: has a little thing on the top of a little
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  Speaker 1: a lot of the line. Yes, what do you call that?
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  Speaker 1: It's not noomout No, those are the dot dots and
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  Speaker 1: it's not a schwa And that's another nope, we are
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  Speaker 1: striking out here. How do you even google a phonetic
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: symbol like that? You just say the short dashed line
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that goes over a vowel. You would do line over
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: a vowel Diacritic. There you go. Did you discover anything, Ben,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Let's see let's try it line over vowel Diacritic and
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the results Like casey, we had a drum roll and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: feel like we've made this a thing. Uh, it is
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a macron and a I was incorrect. A dire rhesus
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: is two dots placed on top of a vowel. That's
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: not an um law. I feel like that's an um laws.
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  Speaker 1: I know that much. That's the German thing, right thing.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I know a tiny I know, I know a fraction
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  Speaker 1: a macron of German. But we're not here to talk
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  Speaker 1: about phonetic symbols than thankfully would we would really poop
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  Speaker 1: the bed on that one. We're here to talk about
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  Speaker 1: the Japanese art of shaved ice flavors, shaved ice, delicious
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  Speaker 1: treat uh, summertime tradish. Yeah. So, as long time listeners
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  Speaker 1: may know, I recently visited Japan for the first time ever,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: and I visited in August. I want to say, I
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  Speaker 1: think it was August. And one thing that baffled me,
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  Speaker 1: which I did not know going in, was that despite
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  Speaker 1: where its position appears to be on a map, Japan
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  Speaker 1: is hot a in August. You you'll sweat. Uh, it's
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  Speaker 1: it's super humid. It's the perfect time if we're being
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  Speaker 1: positive for this. Shaved ice for cockagory for ice cream,
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  Speaker 1: and it's often nowadays, right, flavored with syrup and a sweetener, right,
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  Speaker 1: like condensed milk. And I appreciate that you said the
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  Speaker 1: art of cockagory nol because cockagory is considered sort of
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  Speaker 1: a tactic to combat the notorious summer fatigue nowadays. But
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  Speaker 1: once upon a time when it first came out, it
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  Speaker 1: was only enjoyed by the elite. Right. Where have we
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: heard that before? Elite getting things before regular folks. Oh,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: it's history. I'm sorry, it's just history in general. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Well it's because it was the required technology, right, And
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  Speaker 1: technology always uh you know, kind of flows downhill, right,
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  Speaker 1: It starts at the top, and people eventually get the
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  Speaker 1: trickle down the crumbs, right. But in this case that
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  Speaker 1: absolutely no exception. That is the technology that is something
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  Speaker 1: akin to refrigeration. Right. The appearance of it dates all
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  Speaker 1: the way back to a period between seven nine and five.
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  Speaker 1: The earliest mention of cockagory comes from an author named
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  Speaker 1: say Shawnagun and probably mispronouncing that who wrote something called
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  Speaker 1: the Pillow Book. I think it's sort of considered a
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  Speaker 1: work of of erotica, if I'm not mistaken. I think
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  Speaker 1: it was written for her and her alone initially, and
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  Speaker 1: it was this kind of account of what was going
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  Speaker 1: on in courtly life, um, but then it ended up
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  Speaker 1: being circulated and gave a real kind of view into
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  Speaker 1: this type of society at the top. And that's where
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  Speaker 1: you would hear about these things that the regular folks
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  Speaker 1: would not have even been privy to write, like these
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  Speaker 1: platters of shaved ice topped with tree nectar, tree sap
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  Speaker 1: and beautiful flowers and such. I mean it was very decadent. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And this book may have never seeing the light of
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  Speaker 1: day except for a strange incident. She one day left
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  Speaker 1: her book on a cushion that she had left out
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  Speaker 1: for a guest who is visiting the court, and the
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  Speaker 1: guests found the book and then ran off with it
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  Speaker 1: stole the book. That's the only reason we know that
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  Speaker 1: Cockagory is this old. The book is a collection of
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  Speaker 1: observations and poems and essays about life in the court
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  Speaker 1: during this time, and in it the author describes very
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  Speaker 1: specifically a dessert made by scraping ice into a metal
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  Speaker 1: bowl and then adding kud zoo. And we can compare
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  Speaker 1: this with other records from the era. The show shaved
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  Speaker 1: ice was also topped with, as you said, nectar of
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  Speaker 1: some sort, or honey right, or hydra eneas or if
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  Speaker 1: you really want to get fancy crushed plums. Just a
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  Speaker 1: little aside, there's a very racy Peter Greenway film from
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  Speaker 1: the nineties called The Pillar Book that is kind of
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  Speaker 1: an adaptation or work kind of based around this Pillow
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  Speaker 1: Book anyway, uh, starring a younger Ewan McGregor. Um not
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  Speaker 1: one of his stronger films, but you know, I would
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: check out some of his other stuff. Greenaway did The Cook,
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  Speaker 1: The Thief, the Wife, which is fantastic. Case am I
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  Speaker 1: misremembering that the Pillow Book itself was a little bit erotic?
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  Speaker 1: Or am I thinking of the film? I think you're, well,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with the book itself, so but I'm
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  Speaker 1: pretty sure the film is reflecting what the book is.
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  Speaker 1: So I think you're I think you're on at least somewhat. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I think so, casey on the case, of course, and
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  Speaker 1: weren't there other pillow books. Yeah, I believe pillow book
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  Speaker 1: can also refer to a collection of notes which have
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  Speaker 1: been curated to show a period of someone's life. This
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  Speaker 1: pillow book, however, racy or not racy, does give us
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  Speaker 1: the first proof of cockagory. According to Dr Eric C. Roth,
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  Speaker 1: pre modern japan historian at the University of Kansas, we
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  Speaker 1: can guess, or we can speculate on how people centuries
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  Speaker 1: ago would have been able to keep ice icy long
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  Speaker 1: enough to make a dessert, right, which is the number
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  Speaker 1: one problem, And then how they would um, how they
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  Speaker 1: would transport it, and how they would enjoy it. Apparently
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  Speaker 1: what they did is they had these special sellers called
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  Speaker 1: hi muro, and they would ship ice from these frigid
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  Speaker 1: mountains and then they would hold it in these sellers.
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  Speaker 1: And you can already see how one would have to
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  Speaker 1: be a person to mean yeah, exactly. And I think
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  Speaker 1: it was in maybe around the teen hundreds that started
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  Speaker 1: getting a little more widely distributed, um because of industrialization,
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  Speaker 1: right absolutely, because now transportation links between cities to places
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  Speaker 1: like Hokkaido where you know where they can actually harvest ice.
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  Speaker 1: Now these insportation routes are much more robust, so when
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  Speaker 1: when transit improved, as you said with the Maggie restoration,
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  Speaker 1: there were these places called ice water stores that popped
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  Speaker 1: up in summer and they just served exclusively this shaved
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  Speaker 1: ice thing, which sounds customizable, which I like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: maybe crush plumbs, crushed plumbs or like you said, the
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  Speaker 1: type of show condensed milk. It reminds me of. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: There was a place that I used to go and
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  Speaker 1: I was a kid called snow Biz and it was
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  Speaker 1: a crushed ice kind of stand and my favorite thing
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  Speaker 1: to do was to get You get the flavor base
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  Speaker 1: and then you get this like creamy condensed milk that
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  Speaker 1: they drizzle over the top, and it really adds to
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  Speaker 1: the mouth feel in a very good way. So let's
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  Speaker 1: take a closer look at the innovations that helped spread
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  Speaker 1: Khaki goori from the you know, from these halls of
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  Speaker 1: aristocracy to the Hoi polloid to the common person. There's
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  Speaker 1: a food entrepreneur named Kahi Nakagawa who was who figured
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  Speaker 1: out how to ship ice harvested from the mountains of
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  Speaker 1: Hokkaido to Tokyo at a fraction of the cost that
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  Speaker 1: the Imperial court used to used to pay He started
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  Speaker 1: uh ice company called Hakodat Ice in eighteen seventy two,
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  Speaker 1: and he wasn't alone. There were a lot of ice competitors.
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  Speaker 1: As weird as it might sound, this is the age
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  Speaker 1: before refrigeration, so you could make this empire based entirely
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  Speaker 1: on taking ice from a mountain and moving it somewhere
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  Speaker 1: before it melts. Telling more of these ice capades been Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: there was the Tokyo Ice Company, the Ayoma Ice Factory,
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  Speaker 1: and they began offering artificially made ice in the eighteen eighties.
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  Speaker 1: This drove prices down even further. And then a guy
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  Speaker 1: named hans A Burro Murakami patents an ice shaving machine
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen eighties seven that made it way easier to
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  Speaker 1: shave ice. It wasn't his labor intensive and picturing the
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  Speaker 1: block of ice on kind of a metal industrial kind
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  Speaker 1: of spindle that you crank and then it uh, you know,
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  Speaker 1: rubs it up against some sort of grinding surface and
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  Speaker 1: then dumps out your nice, snowy shaved ice. Yeah, that
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  Speaker 1: sounds that sounds sure. But then things took a turn
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  Speaker 1: um in around eighteen fifty three when a United States
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  Speaker 1: naval fleet, which was made up of four super deadly
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: warships arrived in Tokyo Bay. And we have an article
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  Speaker 1: from Atlas Obscura dot com that talks about this democratization
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  Speaker 1: of Kakagory as an indirect result of American gunboat diplomacy.
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  Speaker 1: So you have Commodore Matthew C. Perry Um who had
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  Speaker 1: a letter in hand from Millard Fillmore Um that was
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: addressed to Emperor COMI of Japan and uh it was
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: entreating him um to end isolationism, this policy that had
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  Speaker 1: been in place for over two hundred years that prohibited
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: trading with the West. Right, Michael Booth in his in
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: his work Three Tigers, One Mountain, exploring geopolitics in this area,
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  Speaker 1: describes Perry's arrival in Japan as something out of a
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  Speaker 1: sci fi alien flick because the ships were larger than
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  Speaker 1: anything that many Japanese people had seen before, and citizens
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  Speaker 1: in the capital were panicking. They thought this was an
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  Speaker 1: existential threat. The Perry expedition was one of the first,
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  Speaker 1: but far from the last, exercises. And you know what
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  Speaker 1: you described earlier gunboat diplomacy, because they the Western powers
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  Speaker 1: really wanted Japan to open up its borders to trade
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and to what they saw as innovation modernization. Eventually it
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: worked and they had this period of rapid social, economic,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and military development. That's where we see these telegraph lines,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: these railroads, these newly paved roads, and this is when
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  Speaker 1: people begin getting more ice directly from Japan because they
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: have better transit. As weird as it sounds, at the time,
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  Speaker 1: ice for category was often imported all the way from
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  Speaker 1: North America. They called it Boston ice. It took six
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  Speaker 1: months to get there. Imagine what that adds to the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: cost of the dessert. And then after they've got these
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  Speaker 1: better roads, that's when those food companies or those entrepreneurs
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: and those competing ice companies get into the game really quick.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: This is all completely accurate and fascinating. A bit about
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: gunboat diplomacy, talk about weird historical flexes, right, I mean,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: it's literally like going on this expedition, this diplomatic quote
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: unquote expedition to this foreign land. As you said, the
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: reaction on shore was like, who are these devil creatures coming?
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: You know, pointing this giant cannon in our faces, you know,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: saying they want east and they want trade. But the
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: implication is or else, right, yeah, oh, very much so.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Just like Dennis Reynolds when he's getting people on a boat.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: It's about the implication. And while gunboat diplomacy has a
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: massive array of unintended consequences, it also had some some
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: positive stuff and one of these was, as you mentioned,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: the democratization of kakagory. Weirdly enough, this strange burgeoning trade
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: war threat of violence leads to cockagory shops opening in
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the Japanese capital. And these shops at first are not
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  Speaker 1: a huge success because Japanese culture at the time had
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: adopted some Chinese medical traditions, and one of the medical
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: traditions or medical beliefs at the time is that you
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: should not drink cold water, you shouldn't cool your body down.
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  Speaker 1: And it's interesting, Japan sort of has a history of this,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: of reinventing itself right when when made aware of of
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: new things. Um So, these gunboat expeditions, the gunboat diplomacy,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: while yes, absolutely a kind of puffing of the chest
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of the US, it made the Japanese aware of modernization
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of technology that they had not been thus far, and
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: it led to something called the Meiji Restoration um which
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: saw telegraph lines and railroads being laid and just you know,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: being aware of the outside world and kind of modeling
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: itself in that image, and it made them much more
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: of an international player. And now we see tradition squaring
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: up against innovation, right or progress. At the time, many
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Japanese people or avoiding these kakagory shops because they're going
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: to use historical traditional methods of cooling down, which would
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: be to eat cold noodles or to have unagi eel
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: with a sweet sauce. And for a while, ice drinks
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: were still seen as kind of sketchy, you know. But
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: by the Meiji twenties as it's called, or the eight nineties,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: cockagory was increasingly accessible to middle class families and it
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: was increasingly accepted. So cockagory, which could have been destined
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: to fade out as an obscure treat for the aristocracy,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: gets a new lease on life and new traditions begin
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: to emerge around this treat in the early twentieth century. Yeah,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: it really is kind of the birth of what we
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: know now today. Is like Japanese street food kind of
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: for example, things like taco yaki, which are these delicious,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: little hush puppy looking things that are filled with octopus
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and a sweet kind of savory sauce. They're still good.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Oh and if anyone's ever in Atlanta, there's a place
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that very specializes in this kind of stuff. It's called Momooki.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: It's the sister restaurant at more of a cafe to
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: my favorite sushi joint in town called brush Azakaya, which
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: is Indicator. But they have things like green tea and
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: black sesame soft serve, and they do taco yuki, and
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: they do ramen and all that stuff. But seems to
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: be modeled after this innovation of like smaller bytes and
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: kind of like sweet street foods and things like that. Yeah,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: so the availability of this stuff seems to go up
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and down. You will hear the ice water stores have
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: disappeared from Japanese streets, but you could still get kaiki
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: gorri a ton of eateries, especially during summer, and it
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: appears to have made a strong comeback over the last
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: few years. Time out dot Com reports the specialist shops
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: have been popping up all over town, sometimes getting lines
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: that border on the ridiculous. We're talking about like one
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: thousand customers a day plus. This dessert once relegated the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: summer is now served year round, and we mentioned at
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the top of the show, uh, the idea of this
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: being sort of an artisanal thing, um in the same
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: way that sushi might be, right, It's it's not. You know,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: when we think of shaved ice, it's sort of a
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: little bit of a low rent kind of dessert, and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: that you have the shaved ice that's usually topped with
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: some sort of really really overly sweet, kind of concentrated
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: fake fruit tasting syrup, right, like blueberry or razzleberry or
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: you know, cotton candy or something horrible like that. Kids
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: love it, but it's not exactly uh fine dining, right,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: But that's not the case and never was the case
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: with kakagory. Like from the start we mentioned it was
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: sweetened with tree sap and condensed milk, and it was
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: really an art to behold because it had like, you know,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: fine flowers and was made to be very aesthetically pleasing
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: as well. We have some great examples of some modern,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: uh super fancy sounding cuckagories from grub Street. Yeah, it's
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: almost like craft beer. Now. We see so many artisanal
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: takes on this. You will see handmade syrups from grapefruit
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: to honey, yogurt, pana cotta. You'll see flower shaped grapefruit jellies,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: brulet grapefruit segments, tarragon. Someone just threw some tarragon on there.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: They feel like, Um, the art of making this stuff
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: is really an art of balancing different flavors to compare
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and contrast subtly against one another. Not to mention that
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the water comes from natural springs much of the time. Um,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: They're all about making the processing the ice in such
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: a way to really contribute to a texture and mouth
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: feel kind of situation. And they use these hand cranked
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: machines rather than automated stuff to get the ice into
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: these perfect layers, and the syrups and all the toppings
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: artifically crafted by hand using very very fine ingredients. And
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: in Japan today you might have some that are flavored
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: with things like red bean paste, which is used. And
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: have you ever had those really cool fish pancakes. They're
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: they're not actually fish flavor. They just shaped like a
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: fish stuff with red bean pastes and with ice cream.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: So good, right, you can get a yeah, you get
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: a couple of different versions, but they're everywhere. It's one
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: of the things I miss when I come back here
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: to the States. Yeah, well they have them at you
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: can actually get them at Super h Smart Work, which
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: is one of our local grocery store chains. Well it
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: feels local, but they're they're everywhere I think they are. Yeah,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that until pretty recently. Um. Part of that,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: you know, fun fact is that I believe for a
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: time it's probably still the case. Georgia has the second
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: largest population of Korean Americans in the country. Well, uh,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: we are very lucky that is the case because we
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: have some fantastic Korean cuisine, barbecue, barbecue, all of the
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: little sides, like everything about it. If ever make it
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: around here, come out to Buford Highway and to spend
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a day, spend a couple of days. I I'm so spoiled.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I only go to the places that I already know
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and love. I very rarely venture outside of that. But
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I really need to. I need to do a good
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Beufort Highway exploration. And look, we know what you're thinking,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: you might be saying to yourself and old casey guys,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: this sounds cool, But when am I going to make
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: it out to Japan? You know, how can I justify
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: getting on a plane and flying for hours just to
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: eat this single dessert. Well, we have good news for you.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: If you are listening in the United States, cockagory is
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: now one of America's hottest desserts as well. Sweetened ice
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: is popular all over the world. Like I think we
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: all grew up with snow cones things like that, but
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: cockagory is considered distinct because it has these thin sheets
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: of ice. It has the homemade syrup, the toppings that
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: you're talking about, and all the layer like assembly and
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: some of the foodies in food buffs of note in
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: our country today, I've decided to showcase kakagory in their
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: own restaurants. One great example would beat David Chang. Ah man,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: have you been any David Chang restaurants? Any of the
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Momofuku spots? Yeah? Yeah, yeah yeah? Which one? Let's see.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I went to milk bar. I went to the one
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: that also has fried chicken fuku maybe yeah, Foo's the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: fried chicken sandwich joint. Uh. And then he's got the
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: noodle bar, which I think is his o G Yeah,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: one which I have not been too. That's the one
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: I think it's hardest to get you. I've only been
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: to one. It's called sambar, and I only got in
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: because they had like a cancelation. I was seeing a
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: movie in New York right next door and just kind
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of waltzed in and got a table, and boy was
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: it one of the best meals I've ever had. But Yeah.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: David Chang famous for his many Momofuku restaurants restaurant group Um,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: also known for the Netflix series Ugly Delicious, so I'm
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: a huge fan of He had this to say about
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: uh kakagory, or as the Korean version is called pots
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: bing Su. All of these Asian varieties of shaved ice
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: are good, but the Japanese have taken it to another level. Cockagory,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: he says, is more refined, and he decided to showcase
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: it at his l a restaurant major domo Um. Then
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: we see a lot of pastry chefs are huge fans
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: of cockagory. Nori Umatsu, pastry chef in the East Village
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: of New York, would wait all year for shave ice
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: season to start at her home in Japan. Now she's
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: working at chat On tea house where she serves cockagory
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: as soon as the subway stations get According to her,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: hot and sticky and she has Yeah, she has one
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: of those vintage shaved ice machines we were talking about,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: like the hand cranked one. She serves this stuff until
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: the end of September or until she runs out of
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: ripe peaches. Very nice, I wanted to say, really quickly,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I've seen a very cool alternative to this at my
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: local farmers market in Grant Park here in Atlanta, where
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: people actually take a frozen watermelon and shave it down
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: as though it were shaved ice because it's got so
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: much water. And you freeze a watermelon and cut it
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: out in like cubes, I guess you put it in
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: that same machine hand crank and it becomes watermelon shaved ice,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and it's just delightful. Yeah. And again I can't as
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: a guy who doesn't really have a sweet tooth, I
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: cannot recommend shaved ice, cackagory or hollow hollow enough. I mean,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: there are different things, but they're both really good and
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: they hit the spot when it is summer. One last note,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Remember how we said earlier during the eighteen hundreds there
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: was this huge industry based entirely on harvesting and transporting ice. Well,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: guess what it's still around sort of didn't that right? Yeah,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: it is right, and it's getting a mad boost from
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: this I end bougie kind of rebranding of kukagory that's
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: happening in Tokyo, um So. According to an article from
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: The Straits Times, it's becoming quite a fashionable thing for uh,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the purveyors of this high incregory to purchase their ice
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: from these ice harvesters or ice farmers, and it really
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: is giving the industry kind of a second life. And
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: that is apparently because this naturally made ice has just
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: a much more refined texture, and that's a really big
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: part of the modern Cuckagory Niche. I guess you could
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: say the market is that it has to have this
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: very fine um consistency, and that's because this ice is
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: particularly hard and it shaves much thinner because it doesn't
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: dissolve so quickly. And so in this article, you can
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: see one of the ice farmers, Mr yu chi Ro Yamamoto,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: throw a little bit of shade cheap machine made ice
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: because making ice naturally is a time consuming and grueling task,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: but store owners appreciate it. Consider the case of Koji
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: more Niche, who struggled when he first opened his Cockagory shop,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: but thanks to his emphasis on the type of ice
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: that's used in his products, he has built a cult
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: following with his various flavors of cockagory desserts, and he
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: has seen demands sore. So now this guy one shop
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: alone harvest a hundred and sixty tons of ice per year,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: and he said that more people are entering the market
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: every time. So it's a good time to be in
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the category business. It's making me really miss my my
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: local uh snow biz stand from when I was a child.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: We go there after a youth group. Ah, boy, was
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: it every good? So refreshing really is a quite delicious
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: summary treat far superior to the snow cone if you
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: ask me. The snow cone is crushed ice therefore kind
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of crunchy, just like a squirt of syrup, yea, and
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: it all goes to the bottom and then you just
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: end up with like a cone of hard, you know,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: oppressive ice. God forbid. You have cold sensitive teeth, my friend,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: like I do. It's just a nightmare. How are your
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: teeth cold sensitive? Now? Can you crunch ice with your
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: with all your teeth? Sure? Yeah, I could probably I
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: could probably eat through drywall. Well that's not the same thing, man,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: you know, so I do not I consider drywall a dessert.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: I do consider cocka gory one for the history books.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: And this concludes today's episode, but not our show. We
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: want to hear from you, folks. What is a regional
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: dessert that you quite enjoy that you think your fellow
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: listeners should know more about. You can tell us on Instagram.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: You could tell us on Facebook. You can tell us
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: on Twitter where we are some derivation or variation, I
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: should say, of ridiculous history. You can also follow our
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: own personal adventures on the internet. Yeah, if you'd like
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: to find me on Instagram, where I exist exclusively, you
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: may hit me up at how now oh Brown And
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: you can find me and my various extracurriculars shenanigans on
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Instagram at Ben Boland or on Twitter at Ben Bolan
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: hs W. Thanks always to our super producer, Casey Pegram.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to a writer dive Matt Frederick, who must
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: be able to hear this because he okay, he can't
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: hear it. He's been sitting out there the entire time.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: It's theater of the mind. Big thanks to Alex Williams,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: who composed our theme, research associate Gabe Luizier, Christopher hasiotas
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: here in sparit Jonathan Strickland that DVS quiz ster um.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: May he you know, Mopi's okay, May he rejoin us
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: one of these days? I feel like it's it's it's eminent.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I talked to him earlier today, and you know, I
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: wonder what he would have said about this, about this
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: cockagory idea. But never fear. Something tells me, some chill
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: in the wind, tells me we'll be hearing from him
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: sooner rather than later. We'll see you next time, folks. Yeah.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows,