Food
Niigata is known for the following regional specialities:
� Uonuma Koshihikari rice
� Shoyu (soy sauce) and Yofu (western-style) katsudon
� Shoyu sekihan
� Noppe stew
� Wappa-meshi (seafood and rice steamed in a bamboo basket)
� Sasa-dango (mochi balls filled with red bean paste, seasoned with mugwort and wrapped in bamboo leaves)
� Poppo-yaki (steamed bread flavored with brown sugar)
� Hegi-soba (soba from the Uonuma and Ojiya areas, which uses a special kind of seaweed)
� "Tsubame-Sanj? ramen" (ramen made using thick udon-style noodles)
� Tochio aburage (aburaage is called "aburage" in Tochio)
� Kirazu (dishes using okara)
� Kakinomoto (edible chrysanthemums)
� Kanzuri (a special seasoning from My?k? made by leaving chili peppers exposed on snow, then adding flour, salt and yuzu)
� Yasuda yogurt
Niigata in popular culture
� Snow Country (1947): a novel by Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata set in Yuzawa
� "Niigata Snow": a track on the LP Aida, released by Derek Bailey in 1980
� Kura: a film and TV series (1995) based on the 1993 book by Tomiko Miyao, an award winning period piece about a Niigata family and its sake brewery
� Blue (1996): a manga about high school girls, set in Niigata City, adapted as a film in 2001
� Whiteout: an action film based on a novel published in 1995
� My Mother is a Tractor: A Life in Rural Japan (2006), a memoir by Nicholas Klar, written when he was based in Itoigawa in Niigata Prefecture
� United
