In a remote village located on the border of Wakayama and Nara prefectures lives Hiroto Tanaka-san, a man who is single-handedly responsible for cataloging and reviving the area's unique food and drink history before it is lost forever.
In the spring of 2019, I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Hiroto. Walking into his house was like entering a wizard's laboratory. To get from the front door to the living room, you had to walk through a labyrinth created from piles of plant matter drying on newspapers that covered the floor. His kitchen countertops were overflowing with plastic bags of numerous varieties of freshly picked citrus fruits. A reishi mushroom that he collected from the nearby forest sprouted from a yogurt container sitting on his coffee table. Shelves lined his living room walls. Each one filled with different jars of liquor, each infused with admixtures of fruits, herbs, fungi, and insects.
He invited us over to taste these obscure Japanese beverages. While it was spectacular to try so many unique concoctions, the fascinating part of the visit was learning about Hiroto's unique research methods and witnessing his fervor for resuscitating dying recipes.
Hiroto became wildly fascinated with regional food culture in his early twenties while he was living near Hiroshima. He spent a lot of time exploring the numerous small islands located in the Seto Inland Sea. He explained how these islands, which are relatively close to one another, have distinct ingredients and food and beverage traditions. He fell in love with place-based culinary history and decided to devote his life to its preservation. Unfortunately, as young people migrate to cities, the transmission of localized traditions from one generation to the next becomes interrupted. He realized that in Nara, often referred to as the heart of old Japan; there wasn't enough work being done to document millennia-old recipes, so he relocated.
Hiroto spends a lot of time talking with local elders. He intensively studies Japanese folklore to gain insight into what people were eating and drinking in the past. He spends his weekends visiting farmers' markets or exploring the forest. His hobbies include collecting food-related antiques. He showed us one of his recent purchases; an Edo period iron mortar and pestle that people used to crush plants for herbal medicine preparations. However, in my opinion, the prospecting of kuras is the most exciting method that Hiroto employs.
In Japan, people commonly build houses out of wood which makes them vulnerable to fire. Therefore, constructing a kura, meaning storehouse or warehouse, became a popular solution to protect goods and precious items against such a catastrophe. The free-standing insulated buildings vary in size and building materials. Some families, when they move to urban centers, have abandoned both their home and kura. Hiroto explained that kuras are like portals to the past because they contain decades-old bottles and jars of preserved food and drink. Hiroto frequently will prospect kuras and recover dusty brews to use as a recipe template and a source of inspiration for developing new beverages.
Hiroto poured us a twenty-five-year-old umeshu that he recently excavated from a kura in a nearby village. The vintage umeshu was sophisticated and transportive. He paired it with an umeshu that he made the prior year, which was bright and vivacious. Side by side, I could taste how time seamlessly melds together the tart, sour, and floral flavors of ume. Both were incredible and remain the best umeshu that I have ever tried.
Our tasting also included Shōchū (a clear Japanese spirit commonly distilled from rice, buckwheat, or sweet potatoes) infused with different fruits and herbs. Hiroto pulled down from his shelves one clear plastic bottle after another. We tried infusions of honeysuckle, loquat, Chinese quince, Japanese nutmeg, trifoliate orange, and wild kiwi relatives.
He accompanied each sample with a story or a string of facts. For example, we learned that the honeysuckle infusion Nindoshu was a favorite drink of Edo period emperors who believed it bestowed vitality. Apparently, it also has notable antibacterial and anti-poison properties. The Japanese nutmeg infusion was an experiment. Hiroto explained that people historically used the ingredient to make oil for the lanterns that illuminate mountain shrines. It was a costly oil because it does not freeze.
He also showed us a bottle of matsutake-mushroom-infused shōchū that was still aging. Matsutake is an incredibly aromatic yet expensive mushroom. He explained that people infuse this mushroom into alcohol to enjoy the smell rather than the taste.
In the middle of our tasting, Hiroto started brewing a special Lactobacillus fermented green tea from Kyushu Island. The same bacteria found in yogurt, sauerkraut, and probiotics. He explained that it is rare to find tea leaves processed this way. Amid the water coming to a boil, Hiroto brought us examples of food recipes that he was working on, including a raw chicken breast he has been curing in sugar for the last five years. He showed us two samples—a failed experiment and one that still has a few years to go.
Hiroto’s ingredient fascination doesn’t stop at plants and fungi; he loves edible insects too. He opened a box to show us the last few bottles of the popular grasshopper-infused shoju (soy sauce) that he developed. He sold out for the season but has plans to take these bottles to René Redzepi's restaurant Noma in Copenhagen.
To end the tasting, we tried one of Hiroto's newest creations—shōchū infused with two species of Japanese bee and their larva. It tasted like a sour green apple. It was delicious! Let's say we left his home feeling a little buzzed. 🐝 ❤️
Thank you, Hiroto Tanaka-San, @hiroto.tanaka.71, for inviting us to your home and sharing your obscure concoctions with us. I am still thinking about the 25-year-old umeshu and the other delicious oddities we tried!
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