Already three years. So much to remember. And so much still to be done.
One person who has taken action is Elizabeth Andoh, through her excellent e-book "Kibo: Brimming With Hope".
The book introduces the distinctive food culture of Tohoku — specifically the three prefectures that bore the brunt of the disaster: Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate.
If you haven't bought it, now is the time to do so. From here…
And this is from Elizabeth's FaceBook page:
The world's top chefs – or at least a good quorum of them – convened in Tokyo this past weekend for the 2012 Tokyo Taste / Basque Culinary Institute's G9 meeting.
The event had nothing like the scale or buzz that accompanied the first Tokyo Taste, back in 2009. In large part that's because the Tokyo Dome City Hall – right next to the Korakuen amusement park with its rollercoaster and other trivial pursuits – has none of the atmosphere and architectural gravitas of the International Forum in Yurakucho.
Nonetheless, it was still very good to see some of the major movers and shakers of the gastronomic firmament back in town, describing their work, their visions for the future, and the impact of their visit to Japan, which also incuded a trip to Miyagi and the areas devastated by the Great East Japan quake and tsunami.
Circumstances (and deadlines) conspired, and I missed almost all of the proceedings. But I did catch the final G9 presentations today (Monday). Here are some images and impressions.
First the participants were introduced to the (predominently) Japanese audience by Yukio Hattori (head of the Hattori Culinary school and regular presence on Japanese TV)…
Then Ferran Adria held forth as chairman of the G9 meeting, describing the context and raison d'etre of the Basque Culinary Institute, the history and development of contemporary cuisine, his own evolution and philosophy, and the main deliberations and the outcomes of this confab…
He was followed by Alex Atala (chef of DOM, in Sao Paulo, Brazil)…
then Gaston Acurio (Astrid y Gastón, Lima, Peru)…
and Massimo Bottura (Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy), who gave a powerful and poetic speech about their visit to Tohoku…
Dan Barber (Blue Hill, New York, USA) gave a great presentation about his favourite cookbook (The Power of Duck, by Takao Furano) [sorry no adequate photo for him]…
Followed by Joan Roca (El Celler de Can Roca, Girona, Catalonia, Spain), who introduced several of his creations…
Next was Prof. Harold McGee, the noted writer on the science of food and cooking, who expressed his appreciation for being able to visit the city where one of the major breakthroughs in gastronomy was made – the discovery of umami, around a century ago.
Unfortunately I didn't have time to stay for the last speaker, Sven Elverfeld (Aqua, Wolfsburg, Germany) – nor for the final wrap-up.
However, there's a very good round-up of the sessions by Gabe Ulla on the Eater web site here…
Thanks to everyone! And, to close, here is a very rough and ready vid of the conclusion of Massimo Bottura's presentation.
As I said, poetic and powerful.
Having enjoyed the blossom outside yesterday, today we celebrated indoors, at the annual hanami party at Namikibashi Nakamura .
The circumstances were very different from last year. But the atmosphere just as enjoyable.
The crew cooked up a storm...
And as always there was sake aplenty.
Three kura were represented, all from Tohoku, including Iwaki Kotobuki (below, closest), which until last year was in Fukushima but had to relocate to Yamagata due to its proximity to the damaged Dai-Ichi nuclear plant...
Hidakami (from Ishinomaki, Miyagi) which was damaged but has been rebuilt...
...and Hakurakusei (also Miyagi) which was totally destroyed but is back and brewing again.
And when we'd finished sipping and nibbling, we tucked into our obento.
Before we left, Nakamura-san introduced the latest addition to his team — a soft fluffy two- month old Shiba that's been named Tarako.
It was good to see the crew from Nakamura Shokudo too, before they headed off to open up for the evening. A most enjoyable day out!
Today, 11th March, is a time for remembrance and prayer. For the victims and all who were lost. For the communities destroyed. For a region devastated. For a country far from recovered. For a future still uncertain.
And then, from tomorrow, to continue the work and duty of living.
Taking a break from its usual role as a multinational food behemoth whose first and only interest is padding its bottom line, Nestlé is lending its mighty marketing (and, of course, manufacturing) machine to the efforts to help the devastated Tohoku region.
It's a Kitkat called Zunda. The idea is that it evokes the taste — or at least the image — of zunda-mochi, a sweet that is a traditional delicacy of Miyagi, one of the three worst-hit prefectures in the Northeast. Basically, it's a dumpling topped with ground-up sweetened eda-mame green soybeans — as suggested by the image on the front of the pack.
The label promises that 10 yen from every unit (not sure if that's per pack or carton) goes to the cause of reconstruction (I haven't read the fine print on exactly where it goes).
And this is what it looks like inside. It's actually white chocolate, given a pale green tint — though that's not obvious from the bleached-out photo here...
Here's a better picture:
And how does it taste? Well, the ingredients listing does really include some eda-mame powder and if you focus carefully as you first put it in your mouth there is a very faint aroma that could be from green soybeans.
In a random and unscientific poll of about 5 people, the general consensus was that it's OK. Alright even. And certainly better than a lot of the other novelty flavoured KitKats produced here over the past few years.
Here's more on zunda-mochi, from Food Librarian who recently posted on how to prepare this colourful sweet (and from whom I got this picture).
And here is KitKat's own website which is actually quite fun.
If you look carefully at all the regional specialty versions, you can see that the zunda variety was actually launched last year, but it's been rebranded for the fund-raising appeal.
More KitKat commentary on the Food File here...
and a whole fistful of KitKats here...
Food writer and restaurant reviewer for the Japan Times contact: foodfile (at) me (dot) com
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