ON JAPAN’S ICE CREAM TRAIL
FROM GASTRO OBSCURA VIA ATLASOBSCURA.COM
If you ask Lynn Ng which flavour of soft ice cream is her favourite, she’ll probably say scallop. “It’s actually really delicious despite seeming like such an incompatible mix,” she says.
Four years ago, Lynn and I worked as assistant language teachers at a high school in Hokkaido. Hokkaido is Japan’s northernmost prefecture, an island comprising some 20 per cent of the nation’s landmass but less than five per cent of the population. For many, Hokkaido is synonymous with road trips and inaka: the countryside. This meant Lynn and I spent weekends on the local roads in her Toyota Passo.
One of our first trips brought us to Wakkanai, the northernmost city in, or roadside service stations. At a stop in Sarufutsu, we ordered cones of soft ice cream (referred to in Japan as “soft cream”). It wasn’t vanilla or chocolate. It was blue honeysuckle.
