🍱 Ozara

When talking about the local cuisines of the Yamanashi Prefecture, hōtō (flat udon noodles and vegetables stewed in miso soup) is often brought up as an example. However, as the Yamanashi Prefecture is one surrounded by mountains, winters are extremely cold whilst summers get extremely hot and this has led to ozara being more preferred over hōtō in the summer seasons. Using cooled noodles thinner than hōtō, ozara is a dish where you enjoy these noodles by dipping them into a warm soy sauce based dipping sauce. As opposed to hōtō which you directly cook in a pot with other ingredients and enjoy, the noodles for ozara are rinsed in cold water after they are boiled on their own. This allows the noodles to be slippery and refreshing to slurp, making them an easy food to eat during the hot summers and a popular choice to prevent fatigue from the summer heat. When rice was scarce in the past, it was made as a delicacy when the weather was warm.