It's Lunch Time - Ibaraki Prefecture

Our culinary adventure to various cities continues this week. Our first stop is Kamisu in the port city of Kashimanada. It is in Ibaraki Prefecture, which has the biggest catch of sardines in the country. The ones caught in the rainy season are known as Nyubai sardines. The area is also the largest producer of green peppers in Japan. 

We walk towards the harbour and drop by Akashi Suisan, a store selling locally caught seafood and processed goods. Its unique rolled omelette is sweet. Instead of ground fish or pounded fish cake, soup stock made with sugar, soy sauce, bonito and kelp is added to locally produced eggs. After this, we check out Kamoyasu Shoten, a manufacturer and seller of processed fishery products. Established in 1882, its speciality is Sakuraboshi, which is made of dried anchovies. They are cleaned by hand and seasoned with the store’s secret mirin sauce, which has been passed down for more than 100 years. This delicacy was once awarded the Emperor's Cup at the Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries Festival.  

Seiji Kamogawa, Kamoyasu Shoten’s managing director and a great cook, allows us to observe him preparing his employees’ lunch. It features sardines prepared in various ways. He first makes grilled Nyubai sardines, which are served with a sauce made with soy sauce and sugar. Other dishes include Nyubai sardine sashimi, the store’s speciality Sakuraboshi which he lightly roasts, and a rice bowl topped with sardines marinated in soy sauce and sake.   

We next head to a Japanese restaurant called Matsuboshi. Its speciality is steamed magokoro pork, featuring sweet cocktail peppers and a brand of pork from Ibaraki Prefecture. For the employees’ meal, the owner makes sweet cocktail peppers stuffed with meat and stir-fried Magokoro pork with spicy miso.  

Our food investigation next takes us to the town of Minamisanriku in Miyagi Prefecture. The coast of Sanriku is considered one of the best fishing grounds in the world. Purple sea urchins found off the Sanriku Coast are a local speciality. A popular dish served at several restaurants in the Minamisanriku area is the Kirakira sea urchin bowl.

We go to the harbour and talk to a sea urchin fisherman who also grows seaweed. Mr Chiba is on his way to catch oysters with his fishermen friends and invites us to join them on their boat. The ship belongs to Yoshifumi Hatakeyama and his wife, Kiyoko. They grow oysters and manage to catch about 400kg of oysters on this day. 

We return to the harbour and meet Kazuhiro Hatakeyama, a fisherman who has a seaweed and kelp farm. He also runs an inn for students, We go to his workshop and watch as he removes the stems from seaweed. He agrees to let us see his dinner. We visit his house in the evening and meet his parents, Tetsuo and Kazuko. Three students from Taiwan who are staying at his inn also help to cook dinner. Dishes include grilled dark sleeper, steamed jacopever, boiled conger eel, octopus, seaweed and rice bowl with sea urchin. 

The Hatakeyamas’ friends, Yusuke Otsuka and his wife Wakiko, also cook some dishes like rolled omelette and sauteed cod with a sauce made from cod liver. Other dishes in the family dinner include dark sleeper soup and vinegared salted seaweed.  

The next day, we go to the harbour at 6.30am and meet Kazuyoshi Abe, who shows us his catch of sea urchins. He takes us to his workshop near the harbour, where he shows us how he shucks the sea urchins using a special tool. He is done after 2.5 hours and the Abe family then makes sea urchin rice bowl for breakfast. 

Tips:

1)    Ibaraki Prefecture is known for its sardines and green peppers 
2)    Sea urchins are a local speciality of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture