Octopus and rice balls, semi-dumplings, and fried rice balls… The world of “local side dishes” loved by locals
A collection of exciting local delicacies
Local supermarkets are a stimulating place where you can encounter exciting foods, including local delicacies, and learn about the traditions and food culture of the area. If I don’t know how to eat something, I ask the clerk or the madam who put the food in my basket. Of course, the sightseeing spots on a trip are fun, but the more interesting places are the local supermarkets that are loved by the locals.
Yoshimi Sugawara, 59, author of “Nihon godochi okazu dai zen” (Japan’s local delicacies compendium) and known as a “supermarket researcher,” explains.
Sugawara has visited more than 1,000 supermarkets nationwide and eaten more than 40,000 “local delicacies” and “local bentos. In 1919, he established a general incorporated association, the “National Association of Local Supermarkets,” and is currently discovering food culture throughout Japan. In this book, Sugawara carefully selects local delicacies called “kodochi okazu,” which are prepared using regional ingredients and traditional cooking methods, and have been eaten for centuries.
Last summer, I was surprised to see ‘Takosame’ at the Aizawa Food Department Store in Wakkanai, Hokkaido,” Sugawara says. It looks like the king bug from “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind,” but it is made by boiling the gills of the octopus, and has a light flavor and no peculiarities. I ate it with ginger soy sauce, and enjoyed both the soft, thick part and the hard, crunchy texture on the tongue.
When I visited there in summer, I could not find them in supermarkets, so I asked Mr. Yasuhiro Kobayashi, president of a fisheries company “Yamadai Kobayashi Shoten,” and he told me that the season for octopus caught in Hokkaido is winter, and that they are larger than octopus caught in the Kanto region, and that Tako-sasame can be found in supermarkets only during the winter. There are still foods like takosasame that are new to me, and the appeal of local supermarkets is endless,” he said.
Mr. Sugawara became attracted to local supermarkets 34 years ago when his family was transferred to Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, and he experienced a culture shock when shopping at a local supermarket. Mr. Sugawara, a native of Okachimachi, Tokyo, looked for soy sauce crackers, which he was used to eating, but found shrimp crackers everywhere. The miso section was filled with only soy (red) miso. The deep-fried delicacies were covered with a sweet miso sauce and no sauces.
It was a world unlike anything I had ever seen in a Tokyo supermarket. But that is the norm for local people. We came to the discovery that this sense of discomfort was the “local color.
Shrimp crackers are said to have started about 100 years ago, when a lot of red shrimp were caught in Mikawa Bay, and because they were fast, the locals only ate a little, and most of them were powdered and used as fertilizer. They thought it was a waste, so they mixed the red shrimp with potato starch, baked it, and made it into rice crackers, which were delicious, and this seems to have spread around Mikawa Bay.
Today, the catch of akasha prawns has decreased and imported prawns are used, but as many as 100 manufacturers, large and small, have factories in the Mikawa Bay area, selling everything from gifts to children’s candy shrimp crackers. They boast the top market share in Japan, but it is said that most of them are consumed in Aichi Prefecture. I learned about the history of shrimp crackers from a local supermarket and became obsessed with the appeal of local foods.”
The Mystery of “Semi Gyoza
I was shocked by the cheap price of “Semi Gyoza” (88 yen for a pack of 10 in 2010), but the mystery only deepened when I saw the illustration of a cicada and the name “Semi Gyoza” (meaning “semi gyoza” in Japanese).
I asked my friends around me, but they didn’t know why,” he said. I called the manufacturer and asked, ‘Cicadas cry ‘meen, meen, meen’ in summer, don’t they? We call it “Min-min food. It was an eye-opener for me, and I felt that if I were to die suddenly now, this fact would be lost without anyone knowing about it, and that it was my mission to leave behind a record of local foods.
In 2012, after publishing the book “Nihon Zenkoku Gotochi Supermarkets: The Best of the Best” (Kodansha), he was invited to appear as an expert on “Matsuko no Shiranai Sekai” (TBS), which was still a late-night show at the time, and introduced “Agezuke” fried tofu from a local tofu shop in Hida Takayama called Furukawa-ya to Matsuko Deluxe. When Matsuko praised the product, sales of Ageduke increased 300-fold, and the website of the local supermarket Family Store Sato, which carries Ageduke, was flooded with access and its servers went down.
Agedzuke is a very simple food made of fluffy fried bean curd and seasoned with dashi (soup stock) and soy sauce. When I casually introduced it to her, she said, ‘I’ve never had such delicious fried tofu before. I’m going to buy all of them at the local supermarket. What Takayama people took for granted and did not pay attention to was a “hidden gem” for people from other prefectures, including Matsuko-san.
My life changed drastically, and I began writing a series of articles on local supermarkets for newspapers and magazines, as well as giving lectures, and I continued to visit local supermarkets in between raising my children.
Scared of Wild Animals While Visiting Supermarkets
Last year, when his daughter went abroad to study and he was free from child-rearing duties, he took his camper to local supermarkets across Japan and ate lunch boxes and prepared foods from local supermarkets for three meals every day. It was during this campervan trip that I met the takosame (octopus) I mentioned at the beginning of this article.
At first, I thought I would park the campervan near a lake in Hokkaido and spend a night playing a musical instrument in elegance, but when I heard that bears might appear, I was too frightened to sleep. There is a place where I can park my camper for a few thousand yen, but even if I go to the bathroom there, the 10-meter walk at night is terrifying. I was not fazed by the frequent town announcements that bears have been sighted in Tohoku and that we should be careful.
Since I was traveling alone, I had to concentrate on driving while I was driving, so I didn’t have time to put together a manuscript or photos. I was frightened of wild animals at night, and it was not at all graceful, but I was happy to enjoy delicacies and boxed lunches from the local supermarket for all three meals.
Mr. Sugawara introduced a selection of delicacies carefully chosen for the magazine’s “Uncle” readers. They are all excellent dishes that go well with both alcohol and white rice. Sugawara says that while she does her daily chores as a housewife, she continues to make trips to local supermarkets.
Somewhere in Japan,” she says, “there is a supermarket waiting for me with foods I don’t know about yet. My journey is never ending.”
If you, the reader, take a look at local supermarkets, you too may come across “treasured foods.
【 Suitable for both sake and white rice A supermarket researcher, Mr. Yoshimi Sugawara, has created an excellent product for uncles.
Peanut Miso (Chiba) Fujimasa Foods
This product is a staple at delicatessen counters in Chiba and Ibaraki, where there are many peanut farmers. While it has been on tables as a side dish, the small bags of peanut miso have been adopted for school lunches in Chiba. It is also eaten as a snack.
Soboro Natto (Ibaraki) Daruma Foods
Mito natto, characterized by its small size, is mixed with chopped kiriboshi-daikon (dried radish). It is seasoned and eaten as is. Ibaraki fathers enjoy a cup of Soboro Natto, and children enjoy it as an accompaniment to rice.
Rural Arare (Mie) Mikuniya
Unbaked arare with a slight salt flavor. In the Ise region, these arare are served with tea and eaten as chazuke (rice with green tea). Those who prefer it softer should soften it with tea before eating. On the other hand, those who prefer it hard should pour tea over it and eat it without a pause. It can also be served with sugar as a snack.
Utsubo deep-fried and simmered (Wakayama) Masuetsu Shoten
That ferocious looking fish is deep-fried and boiled in sweet and spicy sauce like tsukudani (food boiled in soy sauce). It has long been eaten in the Nanki region, but is not found in other parts of Japan. It is rich in iron and calcium, which one might not expect from the appearance of the fish, and was a nourishing food before and after childbirth.
Salted yellowtail (Gifu, Nagano), Surugaya Uoichi
In the old days, yellowtail caught in Himi, Toyama Prefecture, were gutted, salted, and preserved as a preserved food. The salted yellowtail was delivered to Takayama over a three-day journey on a man’s back. By the time it arrived in Takayama, it was salted to perfection and became the “New Year’s fish,” an essential part of the New Year’s celebration. Even today, it is sold at supermarkets in Takayama from December to the beginning of the new year, but if you miss the season, you will have to wait until next December.
Interview, text, and photography by Sugawara： Daisuke Iwasaki
