Japanese museum offers recreation of prison food

ABASHIRI, Japan — Hokkaido, Japan’s rural, northernmost island, has a wealth of tourist attractions. But while most travelers spend their time enjoying the natural beauty of the region’s mountains, forests, and oceans, visitors to the city of Abashiri often spend their time in a very different way.

That’s because in contrast to the sense of freedom Hokkaido’s wide-open vistas are so evocative of, Abashiri is home to the Abashiri Prison Museum. Aside from exhibits on the history of incarceration, the museum also has a cafeteria, where diners can eat a recreation of modern Japanese prison food, and even knock back a bottle of Abashiri Prison Stout beer.

Abashiri’s permanent population has been supplemented by convicts since the Meiji Era of the late 1800s. Even today, criminals are housed in Abashiri, although they’re placed in a more modern correctional facility than the town’s original one.

With no more need to keep prisoners in the old jail, the building has been converted into the Abashiri Prison Museum, and travelers with time to spare can see more than a dozen preserved and recreated aspects of the prison. Even if you’re in a rush, though, you can get a literal taste of life on the inside at the adjacent Prison Cafeteria.

While the restaurant has inexpensive standards such as ramen, beef bowls, soba, and udon, what most people come for are the Prison Food Set Meals, recreations of the meals served to the actual prisoners currently being held at Abashiri’s prison. On the day we stopped by, this meant a choice between two types of fish: samma (saury) or hokke (a type of mackerel).

We opted for the saury, which also came with sliced daikon radish, harusame salad, miso soup, and a 70/30 mix of white rice and barley. In stark contrast to a typical Japanese restaurant meal, where the foods and plates are arranged to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible, the no-frills presentation wasn’t doing much to visually stimulate our appetite.