If you think about it, almost everything in life comes back to food. Consider Japanese festivals, the overwhelming majority of which are deeply connected to the yearly agricultural cycle that centers around rice cultivation. Spring festivals commemorate the start of the planting season; summer festivals are held to ward off disasters and pray for healthy crops; autumn festivals celebrate and express gratitude for bountiful harvests. 

Agricultural cycles notwithstanding, there are many aspects of Japanese food and drink that our ancestors saw fit to commemorate with oddly specific shrines. The details matter; there’s no such thing as an all-purpose ‘culinary’ shrine. Whether you’re wishing on dried sweet potatoes for your dreams to come true or simply expressing gratitude for the delicious things that keep us alive, the shrines below are here to listen to your prayers. 

Cooking 

Is becoming a better cook important to you? If so, make a pilgrimage to Takabe Shrine in Minamiboso, Chiba, and pay your respects to Iwakamutsukari-no-mikoto, the deity of cooking. This shrine is located way down in the south of the Boso Peninsula, and getting here is a trek and a half, but you’re in good company, as established and aspiring chefs, condiment manufacturers, and other people involved in the food industry all make the journey here. 

A re-enactment of a Heian-era court ritual is held here three times a year, on 17 May, 17 October, and 23 November. In this knife ceremony, a priest dressed in ceremonial clothing prepares fish such as sea bream or carp with only a knife and chopsticks — they do not touch the fish with their bare hands.  

Sweet potatoes 

While sweet potatoes are a beloved Japanese staple today, the tuber was first introduced to Ryūkyū (present-day Okinawa) in 1605 by government official Noguni Sōkan, who planted seedlings from Fujian in his village. Within 15 years, sweet potatoes could be found growing across all of Okinawa; they were even presented as gifts to Satsuma Domain from Okinawan ruler King Sho Nei. Today, one can visit Noguni Sōkan Shrine in the town of Kadena, Okinawa, which deifies the man credited with bringing sweet potatoes to this island. 

Around a century later, 22-year-old Maeda Riemon of Ibusuki (Satsuma, present-day Kagoshima) encountered sweet potatoes for the first time on his visit to Ryūkyū, and loved them so much that he brought a basket of them home to plant in his garden. Being a generous chap, he shared the crop with his neighbours, who took to cultivating their own afterwards. Unfortunately, he perished at sea two years later, but was not forgotten by the grateful people of Satsuma Domain, who erected a stone monument for him (it reads ‘kara-imo don’ or ‘Lord Sweet Potato’), and later, built Tokkō Shrine in Yamakawa, Ibusuki, and deified him there. 

These days, sweet potatoes are cultivated across Japan. Ibaraki Prefecture is the nation’s top producer of dried sweet potatoes; at 90% of the national supply, no other area comes close. It stands to reason that there is a shrine associated with the stuff. Enter Hoshiimo Shrine in Hitachinaka, Ibaraki. This is a relatively new shrine built in 2019, and supposedly enshrines five people who popularised dried sweet potatoes in the region. 

Hoshiimo Shrine is a favourite on social media for its eye-catching golden torii gates — which, of course, are supposed to evoke sweet potato flesh. Additionally, ‘hoshi-imo’ (dried sweet potato) sounds similar to ‘hoshimono’ (things one wants), which implies that you might get what you want. (The Rolling Stones want a word.) Don’t forget to check out the dried sweet potato vending machine on the shrine grounds. 

Far less impressive but still kind of cute is Imo Shrine in Katori, Chiba, which consists of a small torii gate and a large sculpture of a sweet potato flanked by two statues of Kuri-chan. Kuri-chan is the sweet potato mascot for the Kurimoto Roadside Station next door, which sells sweet potato soft-serve ice cream. The shrine is probably best visited during the Kurimoto Furusato Sweet Potato Festival, where visitors can join a potato-digging event, sample the local benikomachi variety for free, and stock up on all the sweet potatoes you could ever want. 

Bonus: While not dedicated to sweet potatoes per se, Kawagoe Hikawa Shrine in Saitama sells sweet potato-themed fortune slips, which are handmade by people with disabilities at the Kawagoe Imo no Ko Workshop.

Shōchū

One cannot discuss sweet potatoes without mentioning the fact that you can distill alcohol from it. Kagoshima Prefecture is famous for its sweet potato shōchū, although you can also distill it from ingredients as varied as rice, barley, buckwheat, brown sugar, chestnuts, potatoes, and even carrots. 

It is also fitting, then, that the first known historic reference to shōchū can be found in Kagoshima — specifically, as graffiti at Koriyama Hachiman Shrine in the town of Isa. In 1559, two disgruntled carpenters carved their displeasure into the rafters with the following words: “The high priest was so stingy he never once gave us shōchū to drink. What a nuisance!” 

Despite this amusing association with shōchū, the shrine doesn’t celebrate it in any meaningful sense — the main deity is actually Empress Jingu, to whom parents pray for safe childbirth and child-rearing. Perhaps one day someone will see fit to erect a new shrine specifically for shōchū. 

Sake 

All Shinto shrines are in some senses associated with sake, as it is the primary offering made to the kami during rituals. But some are more closely associated with sake than others, and none more so than Saka Shrine in Shimane. This small shrine on a hill is dedicated to Kusunokami, the deity of sake-brewing, and dates back to at least 733. Shimane is thought to be the birthplace of the gods in Japan, and as we know, the gods love their sake. Conveniently enough, one can also visit Saka Shrine to pray to the gods of soy sauce, and fermentation more generally. 

Saka Shrine is one of a small handful around the nation that still hold a license to brew their own sake. Every year, the head priest brews doburoku (unrefined sake) and serves it to sake brewers from all over the prefecture, who gather to drink and pray for a good year. Visitors can also sample this doburoku at the Doburoku Festival held on 13 October. Other shrines around the country, such as Nagakusa Tenjin in Aichi and Shirahigetawara Shrine in Oita also hold similar Doburoku Festivals. 

Over in Kyoto, Matsuo Taisha is the shrine of choice for sake brewers and miso manufacturers. Built next to a waterfall on Mount Matsuo in 701 by the Hata clan, Matsuo Taisha attracts brewers from all over Kyoto and beyond, who come here to pray and receive some of the shrine spring’s sacred waters. (Pure water is a crucial ingredient in sake brewing.) In return, they donate casks of their own sake to be used in shrine rituals. None of the three deities believed to be enshrined here — Oyamakui-no-kami, Ichikishimahime-no-mikoto, and Mikogami — are necessarily associated directly with sake brewing, but Ichikishimahime-no-mikoto (or Benzaiten, as some of us know her) is the deity of sea travel. Close enough, we guess?

Ōmiwa Shrine in Sakurai, Nara, is another favourite shrine with sake brewers. It’s notable for having no sacred images or objects; instead, the primary deity to worship there is Mount Miwa, on which the shrine is located. Rather than the building housing the deity, the mountain is itself the ‘kami-body.’ This is likely closer to an early form of Shintoism, by way of showing reverence for natural phenomena such as a mountain or river. Another kami worshipped there is Ōmononushi in the form of a white snake; offerings of sake and chicken’s eggs, which are believed to be its favourite foods, are usually placed around the shrine grounds. 

Rice balls 

Hikifune Takagi Shrine in Sumida, Tokyo, is not technically dedicated to rice balls. But it does enshrine Takami-musubi, the deity of birth, creation, marriage, and spiritual ties, and ‘o-musubi’ is another way of referring to rice balls. As such, there are rice ball-themed elements all around the shrine, such as playful onigiri-shaped pebbles, onigiri-shaped votive tablets, onigiri-shaped lucky charms, and rice ball carvings on the lanterns. Everything is just so damn adorable. 

Written by Florentyna Leow