Kakigōri
Japanese shaved ice dessert
Kakigōri (かき氷) is a Japanese shaved ice dessert flavored with syrup and a sweetener, often condensed milk.
History
The origins of kakigōri date back to the Heian period in Japanese history, when blocks of ice saved during the colder months would be shaved and served with sweet syrup to Japanese aristocracy during the summer. Kakigōri's origin is referred to in The Pillow Book, a book of observations written by Sei Shōnagon, who served the Imperial Court during the Heian period. Kakigōri became more accessible in the 19th century, when ice became more widely available to the public during the summertime. The first kakigōri store is believed to have opened in Yokohama in 1869.
July 25 is known as kakigōri day in Japan because of its pronunciation sounding similar to summer ice in Japanese. Another reasoning for July 25 being kakigōri day is because, on that day in 1933, there was a record high temperature in Japan.
Description
The traditional way of making kakigōri uses a hand cranked machine to spin a block of ice over a shaving blade. Even though electric shavers are most often used, street vendors can still be seen hand-shaving ice blocks in the summer.
Rather than flavored ice, Kakigōri is traditionally made of pure ice, in many cases, being a frozen block of mineral water.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kakigōri” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.