Yaki-tōkibi

If Hokkaidō has a street-food anthem, it is the smell of yaki-tōkibi drifting across Sapporo's Ōdōri Park on a summer evening. Tōkibi is the island's dialect word for corn, and the grilled-corn stalls that line the park have been a fixture since the post-war Shōwa decades, when Ōdōri settled into its role as the city's central promenade. The corn itself is the point of pride — Hokkaidō's short, bright summers and broad plains, farmed in the American style since the Meiji development years, produce sweet corn the rest of Japan covets. Grilling it over coals with soy and butter is simply the loudest way to show it off.

The technique is less about the fire than about patience with the baste. Steam the ears first so the grill can do one job — char — then build the soy-butter glaze in coats, letting each one blister and darken before the next. What you get is corn on the cob with a lacquered, smoky, salty-sweet crust and butter in every crevice, eaten off the cob with your hands and no apology. It is park food, summer food, Hokkaidō food, and it does not travel — which is exactly why you make it at home when the good corn lands.