We had landed the day before, straight from Tokyo, and woke that morning heavily jetlagged. Though it is a thrill to be back in Japan, some of us are feeling a little tired and emotional, but the approach to this traditional Okinawan wooden house via a steep pathway overhung with plants and trailing flowers somehow transforms our mood before we even reach the door. The building itself is all but engulfed by rampant greenery. It feels like the nest of some great flightless bird. Inside, it looks more like a private home than a restaurant with shelves full of mementos, toys and old magazines, and a random jumble of wooden furniture, some Japanese, some Western.
‘Are you sure this is a restaurant?’ Asger had whispered as we entered. But after a long-haul flight in economy seats designed by the Spanish Inquisition it felt like exactly the kind of first meal on Japanese soil we should be eating.
Okinawa is usually depicted as a subtropical paradise of golden beaches, turquoise seas and verdant jungles, but the main island, Okinawa Honto, is a bit of a mess. In the hasty rebuild following the devastation of World War II, quality architecture was not a priority and the ensuing cheap, concrete development means that, today, urban Okinawa is pretty much an expanse of irredeemable eyesores. Garamanjyaku is located amid the worst of it, above the town of Kincho Kunigamigun. Home to a massive US military base, its centre is a sleazy maze of bars and hostess clubs whose chief culinary highlight is the aforementioned taco rice – minced beef with white rice, in a taco.
Yet, as we now sit and talk and eat, I feel far removed from all that. We are presented with several intriguing vegetarian courses, all served on banana leaves. Unfortunately, the predominantly bitter, vegetal flavours do not hold so much appeal for my children and several times Lissen and I have to reassure Kiyoko that they are ‘just not very hungry’ as they toy with some unidentifiable clumps of matter. I struggle, too, I have to admit. Among the more challenging items is a tea infused with various leaves plucked from the garden, including mugwort and one called chomeiso, the ‘long life’ plant, according to Kiyoko. For me, the tea is borderline undrinkable. And then comes the foaming purple drink.
‘It is fermented brown rice and beni imo, with a little black sugar,’ Kiyoko says. Depending on the weather, the mixture is left for up to two weeks to lactate and bubble, she adds. It is one of the more interesting flavours from the meal – sweet and funky with the floral taste typical of beni imo, the magical, Okinawan purple sweet potato.
Lissen and I have been fascinated with this vivid-coloured tuber since our first visit; indeed, for my wife, over the years, the fascination has become a certifiable obsession. Whenever we had reminisced about Japan, Lissen would always return to the subject of the beni imo and, if anything, she clung even more tenaciously to the idea of one day growing purple sweet potatoes herself at home.
She would describe this in that misty-eyed way that some people talk about one day fixing up a hammock or learning how to meditate, never mind that growing her own Okinawan purple sweet potatoes in our garden was an improbable ambition for a woman who a) only ever ventures outside to drink coffee on a sunny day, and b) other than watering house plants to death has never shown the slightest interest in horticultural matters in all the years I have known her. But return she would, again and again, to the subject of her beloved Okinawan purple sweet potato.
I know of no other person who would consider a visit to a potato research centre as a ‘treat’, but Lissen is thrilled to the point of agitation the next morning as we have planned a visit to Yomitan, Okinawa’s purple sweet potato capital and the first place potatoes were cultivated in Japan. And if she was excited before the visit, it was nothing compared to how she felt when we left …
On Okinawa, the beni imo is credited with all manner of health benefits, mostly on account of its high levels of vitamin C and betacarotine. Its history here dates back to the turn of the seventeenth century, and has become intertwined with that of islands themselves. The sweet potato arrived via a circuitous route from South America to Spain from where it was taken to the Philippines and then China. In 1605, a local government officer, Noguni Sokan, visited China with a trade delegation. He brought some sweet potatoes back and tried to grow them in his garden back in Okinawa. It was a great success and the crop spread rapidly throughout the Okinawan archipelago. Thanks to the English sailor William Adams (of whom more later), it reached mainland Japan in 1615 where it also flourished, particularly on the south-western island of Kyushu.
Noguni Sokan is still considered a great Okinawan hero; his sweet potatoes have been credited with saving the islands from starvation several times during their typhoon-ridden history, and there is a shrine and annual festival in his honour. Today, the sweet potato is the second biggest crop here after, oddly, chrysanthemums; it is a bona fide Okinawan icon. Kit Kat chocolate bars even make a purple potato version exclusively for sale in this part of Japan, and in Japan the fides don’t come any more bona than that.
The last time we had visited Okinawa I had been led to believe that Okinawa’s frequent typhoons meant that its soil was constantly being replenished by nutrient-rich water washed up from the surrounding, coral-filled ocean. The theory was that the calcium from the coral ended up being distributed on the farmland of Okinawa and this was why the Okinawan purple sweet potato was so delicious and healthy, and possibly also why the locals lived so long. It turns out that this is completely false.
‘No, the soil is not at all rich on Okinawa, it is not fertile at all, I’d say it’s about a third as rich as the soil in Kagoshima [the next prefecture heading north, on the island of Kyushu],’ says Ichiro Shiroma, as we stand in the well-ordered greenhouse laboratory where he works. ‘Also, sea water is really not good for sweet potatoes. The whole coral mineral deposit theory just isn’t true.’
Shiroma-san is uniquely placed to pronounce on all this as he used to be an oceanic researcher but is now a soil specialist in charge of the purple sweet potato research project at the local government agricultural centre here in Yomitan. He carries out soil analyses for local farmers to help them adjust fertiliser levels, but his main mission is to create the ultimate Okinawan purple sweet potato: one which is both deeply purple in colour and rich in flavour. At the moment, the two goals seem, frustratingly, to be mutually exclusive. You either get a lovely purple-coloured potato with not much flavour, or something which tastes great but is orange or white.
The current crop of purple sweet potatoes grown on Okinawa are a recent variety, created only around eight years ago after a decade of experimentation. ‘They were bred by the prefecture to stay purple even when they were cooked – most coloured potatoes lose their colour when you boil them – but they don’t really taste of much,’ Shiroma, in his early thirties and dressed in a pale-blue boiler suit and baseball cap, continues. ‘Our customers locally, the bakers and people who make purple potato products, just wanted a strong purple colour but actually, the pure white potatoes they used to grow after the war had the best flavour. They add lots of sugar to compensate for the lack of flavour with the purple potatoes and mix in some of the better tasting, pale potatoes. The purple one, that’s the special potato for Okinawa today.’
Shiroma collects thousands of seeds during a season but only about one in a thousand is suitable for propagation. He shows us a selection of locally grown potatoes, all of which look pretty much like the large, orange variety of sweet potato grown in the United States until he cuts them in half. Though some of them are off-white, others glow with that extraordinary bishop’s-mitre purple we had come to associate with Okinawa.
We chat a little more about the challenges of growing purple sweet potatoes, and Shiroma shows us some test tubes, each containing a slender green sprout rooted in a centimetre of clear gel. With a slight catch in her voice, Lissen mentions her decade-long dream to grow Okinawan purple sweet potatoes back home.
‘Here, how many do you want?’ Shiroma says offering her a tray of test tubes.
My wife and I look at
each other. One of the world’s leading sweet potato experts is offering us some of his … sprouts? Saplings? (Still not sure what you call them.) We cannot quite believe our fortune and, disregarding considerations of how we will transport and care for the plants while travelling through Japan, not to mention concerns about the legality of importing live plants – and potato plants at that – into Europe, we greedily accept eight test tubes, four of which Shiroma says ought to produce a purple crop and four light-coloured.
One day, some months hence, I imagine us blending the two to make the most perfect, sweet-tasting, luridly purple cakes and ice creams with which to dazzle friends and family but over the coming weeks these eight Okinawan sweet potato plants will prove somewhat burdensome. Though we observe the strict instructions from Shiroma-san not to open the tinfoil that covers the top of the test tubes until the leaves have outgrown them, and not to water the plants under any circumstances, they struggle to cope with life on the road. One by one, the first four potato plants turn brown with stress, then curl up and die. Yet Lissen refuses to relinquish the four survivors.
‘Once I get them home, we can get them in some proper soil and really care for them,’ she insists a couple of weeks later on in our journey, holding a glass tube containing a sad little brown splodge up to the light. Sadly, when it comes time to fly home, Lissen will judge only two plants worth saving – two plants which must bear the hopes and dreams of a novice potato grower.fn1
Chapter 3
Umi Budo
In the years since we first visited Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost archipelago has assumed the status of some kind of Shangri-La in our family’s collective memory, thanks to its seemingly computer-generated sandy beaches, cloudless skies and quite unJapanese, chilled-out vibe.
Our first few days reinforce this impression as we are now staying at the Busena Beach Terrace, a luxury hotel which once played a key role in that mythology. The first time we were in Okinawa we had been travelling on a very tight budget and had regarded this splendid, beachfront resort from afar, like medieval serfs outside the palace gates. One day, we had dared to venture up its lengthy, winding driveway – really we just wanted to take a sniff at how the others lived – but had been gently shepherded back down again when the staff spotted us and, quite rightly, judged us to be unworthy of their frictionless service, complicated swimming pool and array of fine-dining options. This time, though, we have managed to bag a room at a heavily discounted, off-season rate.
The first morning, we encountered an old friend at the Busena’s vast and dazzling breakfast buffet: umi budo. One of the most surprising foodstuffs I have ever encountered, umi budo is a type of seaweed, nicknamed ‘sea caviar’ or ‘sea grapes’ – minuscule, fragile, green tendrils bearing tiny spheres, like a briny rosary. When eaten, the spheres make a satisfying, crunch-pop on the roof of your mouth – a sensation called ‘puchi puchi’ in Japanese – before washing your palate with a delicate, fresh flavour of the ocean.
I had only eaten umi budo a few times since that first visit to Okinawa, only in Japan, and always at posh restaurants as a garnish dressed with a little ponzu. I am entirely lacking in self-restraint so, usually, when I find a food I like, I gorge until I am sick of the sight of it, but scarcity had prevented this happening with umi budo. I am determined to rectify this oversight during our time on Okinawa, and also have many questions about this strange little plant. Why, I wonder, is such an amazing and distinctive product not more widely available? I’d imagine chefs everywhere would go crazy for its texture and flavour. How did it grow? Is it farmed, or wild?
Okinawa’s centre for umi budo production – and therefore Japan’s, and perhaps even the world’s – is the island of Kume, a little under an hour’s flight from Okinawa’s main island. Kume-jima is both a gourmet paradise and an actual, real paradise, with lovely beaches, tropical coral reefs and forested mountains. As well as the umi budo, it is famous for its miso cookies, for its sea salt, its sugar cane, for a special type of prawn, for raising goats (rarely eaten elsewhere in Japan, goat meat is common on Okinawa) and its cows. Many of the cows which end up as ‘wagyu’ or ‘Kobe beef’ are actually born on Kume-jima or some of the other islands of Okinawa, where they benefit from the warmer climate at birth before being shipped to famous cattle regions on Honshu, like Matsukawa, where the chillier weather encourages them to take on the incredible fat marbling for which Japanese beef is renowned.
We have some spare time during our first morning on Kume-jima so borrow bicycles from our hotel and head out through the sugar cane fields. We ride along virtually empty roads for most of the way accompanied only by massive butterflies, passing a beni imo farmer just as he is pulling a big bunch of purple sweet potatoes from the thick, red soil. Then, suddenly, in the middle of this bucolic scene, a stadium comes into view, packed with people. It transpires that many of Japan’s baseball teams are visiting Okinawa on their winter training break, and Tohoku’s Rakutan Golden Eagles have been billeted on Kume. We sit and watch the players practising for a while, alongside groups of cheering schoolkids up in the bleachers.
(Much later in our trip, inspired by this experience, we go to see the two main Tokyo teams, the Yomiuri Giants and the Yakult Swallows, play at the Tokyo Dome. Sadly, our Kume-jima experience had misled us: baseball turns out to be extraordinarily dull. The scoreline that day was essentially binary code – 1:0, 0:1, 0.1, 0.0, etc. It made Test cricket look like cage fighting. But the food at the stadium was wonderful: elaborate bento, sushi, tonkatsu, curry rice and tako yaki, with beer ‘girls’ circulating with tanks of draft beer on their backs. Based on the food and the atmosphere we would definitely recommend a Japanese baseball game if you get to Tokyo, just don’t go expecting any kind of sporting spectacle.)
For lunch we have been recommended an Okinawa soba restaurant, Kumejima Soba, in Nakadomari, the island’s capital, a small, dense grid of breezeblock houses clustered around a harbour. The ‘soba’ is actually ramen – that is, not buckwheat noodles served with a dipping sauce as the name suggests, but wheat noodles served in a soup. This is not a mistake; in Okinawa ramen is called soba, and they are actually in the right. It’s the rest of us who are wrong. In the time before ramen came to Japan from China in the late nineteenth century, ‘soba’ was the generic Japanese word for all kinds of noodle. So it was natural that when ramen arrived in Japan, probably via the port of Yokohama, it was called ‘shina soba’, or ‘Chinese soba’; indeed, some places in Yokohama still call it that. And, so, even though Okinawan soba noodles are made with wheat flour rather than buckwheat, they still stick to the old name.
More importantly, I discover that Okinawan soba ticks all my personal ramen preferences. The noodles are almost udon-thick and the broth is typically made with things from the sea rather than just pork bones boiled for days: things like konbu (dried kelp), katsuobushi flakes (bonito fillets, smoked and dried) and niboshi (dried sardines). There are some pork bones too, this is Okinawa after all; there’s always some pork somewhere in the mix. I could definitely see Okinawan soba becoming the next big thing in the ramen world, although it will probably have to change its name.
Kume-jima has other surprises in store. It is a rock-pooler’s paradise; we spend most of the rest of the day marvelling at the tropical fish which get trapped in the petrified coral beach on the north side of the island. That night, we enjoy a traditional Kume dinner at our hotel featuring satisfyingly large quantities of umi budo, served with a ponzu gel (ponzu – the dipping sauce which blends soy sauce with citrus juice, typically yuzu), and also as a garnish for steamed chicken and rice. It is the perfect hors d’oeuvre for our visit the next day to the Kume-jima Deep Sea Water Development Company (KDSWDC), a rather boring name for a rather extraordinary place, just a twenty-minute taxi ride from our hotel.
Here, in hundreds of tanks of water, they nurture great forests of bulging, ripe sea caviar – 180 tons a year. Each tank contains three tons of chilly deep-sea water pumped in from a
couple of miles off the coast. This water is the secret to what is probably the best umi budo in the world. Unfortunately, the chances of the rest of the world getting hold of some remain low, at least for the time being.
‘It is incredibly fragile, it doesn’t keep much longer than a week. Our biggest challenge is trying to keep that freshness, that amazing popping texture.’ Plant manager Tsukasa Nakamichi is giving us the lowdown on the tribulations of being the world’s leading sea caviar farmer. ‘If you freeze it, it liquefies. If you brine it, or dry it and rehydrate it, you lose the flavour.’ Umi budo also needs to be kept relatively warm, so air-freighting is difficult. Nakamichi simply cannot meet the demand and, yet, the more the world gets to taste his umi budo, the more it wants. Already in Tokyo they are paying over ¥10,000 per kilo (£62), and though the demand is going global, so far the furthest he has been able to export is Hong Kong.
A dozen or so women in sun hats and elbow-length rubber gloves are sorting and hand-trimming harvested strands. The air is filled with a bewitching briny aroma.
Nearly all umi budo consumed by humans is farmed. The only place in Japan where it grows wild – in tiny quantities and during the summer only – is in the waters around Miyako-jima, which falls into the same climate band as parts of the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, where umi budo also grows. In the wild it usually grows three to five metres underwater in the sand-filled hollows of coral or rock, although it has been found thirty metres down. Umi budo is very tricky to harvest from the wild because it grows amid a dense cloud of its own waste. You have to dive blind to pick it – one reason why, in olden times, fresh umi budo was considered a highly prestigious gift.
The Meaning of Rice Page 2