We spent this New Year, as is our custom, in Kamakura. We helped to toll the joya-no-kane bell at our favourite hillside temple. At a little shrine under a steep wooded cliff we made our ritual hatsumode obaisances. And then, needless to say, we feasted in auspicious style.
We slurped hearty toshikoshi soba noodles, rolled and chopped by hand at Nakamura-an. We sipped piping-hot amazake, the sweet, slightly cloying flavor of the cultured rice balanced by a judicious sprinkle of powdered cinnamon. We grilled mochi (sticky rice) that was still warm and pliable, fresh from being pounded at Okuni, a long-established wagashi shop. And we imbibed resinous taruzake decanted straight from the barrel, with which we toasted friends and strangers alike.
For the first three days of the New Year, the local authorities close all roads in central Kamakura to outside traffic. While day-trippers clog the main thoroughfare between the JR station and Hachimangu Shrine, the locals like to amble through the less-trod streets around the periphery of town. It's a rare opportunity to once again appreciate what makes Kamakura such a desirable place to live: the tranquility, the sense of community, and the security engendered by that protective ring of green hills on three sides, the ocean guarding the south.
But what makes this place so special for us (and for anyone who likes to eat well) is that here – like nowhere in the metropolis – you can provision your kitchen with food that is truly local.
It's not hard to find, either. The place to start is the city produce market, just a few short steps from the station and the tourist shops. Here, at first light every day local farmer set up their stalls, offering an array of vegetables that they planted, tended and harvested themselves.
In winter, their trestles groan under the weight of cauliflowers, turnips, taro yams, daikon and hakusai (Chinese cabbages). At the end of December, they bring in less common vegetables, such as kyo-ninjin (long, dark-red Kyoto carrots) or yurine (lily bulbs), for the celebratory osechi ryori meals eaten on the first few days of the year.
Recently, some of the farmers have also begun experimenting with more unusual vegetables. Bulbous kohlrabi, purple mustard greens, arugula (rocket greens) and even exotica such as Egyptian molokhiya greens, Thai lemongrass or jalapeño chilies.
During the summer, there will be salad greens aplenty; watercress harvested from mountain streams; and wonderful vine-ripened tomatoes (French chef Alan Ducasse is on record as saying that a Kamakura tomato he was given on a recent visit was the equal of the Mediterranean tomatoes he uses in his Michelin-starred restaurants).
It is wonderful to know that your vegetables may have been dug or cut on the morning of the day they are sold. But it is an even greater pleasure to be able to buy produce from the people who actually grew it. It gives a sense of connection with the soil of the place, what the French call its terroir.
This is equally true when it comes to the seafood. In summer, the bay is little more than a pleasure zone for city dwellers seeking sun and sand. The rest of the year, though, it is reclaimed by the fishermen, who haul in their catches or peg out to dry the wakame seaweed they have cultivated.
On the long beach known as Shichirigahama, there are huts where you can buy freshly netted shirasu (tiny fry, similar to whitebait), which are sold in bags semi-dried so they keep better, or fully-dried in crisp rectangular sheets known as tatami-iwashi.
Just a short stroll away in the opposite direction lies the fishing port of Kotsubo. This narrow inlet in a fold of the hills is officially in Zushi City, but it operates as a self-contained fishing community, complete with its bustling little fish market right in front of where the fishing boats are pulled up on their slipways.
For such a small place, there is always a great selection of seafood. Not all of it is local. They often have maguro (tuna) offloaded at the tip of the Miura Peninsula, or buri (yellowtail) from the Sea of Japan. But the core of their business is the catch from nearby waters.
You can usually find madai (sea bream), aji (jack), tobi-uo (flying fish) and suzuki (sea bass), along with various kinds of squid and shellfish -- the local specialty being sazae (horned turban). They keep tanks full of live flatfish (hirame or karei), and there are always trays of lesser fish, ugly species rarely spotted on supermarket shelves.
This market is actually privately run, staffed by three generations of an extended family. The men take care of lugging and preparing the seafood, while the womenfolk handle the money. They can be brusque to the point of rudeness to outsiders, especially the gawkers who get in the way or prod the fish, but also to customers – even well-shod Kamakura housewives – if they forget to bring their own plastic bags to put their purchases in.
But that is a small price to pay for that deep sense of connection. You have bought your fish just a few meters from the water in which it swam. The market folk are part of the fishing community.
There is growing interest in Japan in the Slow Food movement, but mostly this centers on the idea of leisurely eating, as often as not in Italian restaurants. That is missing the point. The true ideal of Slow Food is to eat locally, to support local artisans and farmers, and nourish a sense of connectedness with the soil. For those living in Kamakura, that does not seem to be very difficult.
First published in The Japan Times Jan 5, 2007. To read the full article, see here
Recent Comments