IT'S NOT JUST SHAVED ICE. Rather than ground or crushed, ice in proper kakigori is shaved on a razor-sharp plane so thinly it more closely resembles freshly fallen snow. Topped with condensed milk and flavored syrup, the rich, cold treat melts gently in your mouth, carrying more flavor than crunch. While kakigori is a common tactic in Japan's annual war against natsubate, or “summer fatigue,” it was not always so. A delectable once enjoyed only by the hyper-rich, its current ubiquity is thanks, in part, to one 19th-century display of American gunboat diplomacy.
The earliest mention of kakigori comes from Sei Shonagon, a lady of the imperial Heian court who wrote in her early-11th century The Pillow Book of a silver dish of shaved ice, topped with tree sap and flower nectar. Dr. Eric C. Rath, a historian of premodern Japan at the University of Kansas, writes that the Heian aristocracy relied on special cellars called himuro to keep ice shipped from the frigid mountains of Hokkaido frozen.
Read Full Article »