Hyogo: More on Meibutsu

A larger PDF of this page is available here

After writing last week's post about Toyooka and its bag industry I got the Hyogo prefecture citizen's newspaper in my mailbox... well everyone in the prefecture did. What did it have on the cover? A map of the meibutsu food items produced around the prefecture.

A few of the generally known ones were there:

• Octopus たこ from Akashi
• Beef 肉用牛 from, well, all over the prefecture
• Onions たまねぎ in Awaji
• Tanba Black Beans 丹波黒 in Tanba, although they put the picture in Taijima and Harima also.
• Crab かに in Taijima

 Some suprises:

• Chrysanthemums きく in Settsu
• Eggplant なす in Tanba
• Figs いちじく in Settsu

~ Bonus geography lesson ~

The internal divisions of Hyogo that follows the pre-Meiji era boundaries more or less are as follows:
([name in kanji]:[color on map])

• Settsu (摂津: green) is the area that consists of the urban Hanshin area centered around Kobe and including Nishinoimya. Where I live.
• Harima (播磨: orange) is the area of mixed rural and industrial use land spanning from Settsu to the Okayama prefecture border centered around Himeji. Spanning the coast from Akashi to Ako.
• Tanba (丹波: blue)is the rural agrarian highlands that are above the Keihanshin (Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe) urban area. Centered around the town of Sasayama.
• Tajima (但馬: pink) consists of Hyogo's Japan sea coast and the agricultural areas in in the northern reaches of the prefecture. Centered around the city of Toyooka and the onsen town of Kinosaki.
• Awaji (淡路: purple) consists of the agricultural island between Hyogo and Shikoku. This area has only recently seen a boom thanks to the Awaji bridge built in the 90's.

The entire paper is free to download from the website here. [in Japanese]