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All About Japan - Stories, Songs, Crafts and Games for Kids

by Johannes Schonherr

Friday, January 23, 2026

Japan's Longest Day Book Review

Japan Book Review: Japan's Longest Day: Intrigue, Treason and Emperor Hirohito's Fateful Decision to Surrender

Japan's Longest Day

by Kazutoshi Hando and Yukinobu Hoshino

ISBN: 978-4-8053-1779-2
Tuttle Publishing, 2023 (English version)
480 pp; paperback

In the closing days of World War II, a few days after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had completely eviscerated any faint hopes that Japan could win or even continue the war, the Japanese cabinet met to discuss and vote on the surrender of Japan and acceptance of the conditions set out in the Potsdam Conference. The vote was a tie, and nobody knew what to do or what was next.

Finally, Emperor Hirohito took decisive action, telling the cabinet members that the war had been lost and Japan would agree to the surrender terms. The fighting would end.

However, not everyone agree. In fact, some high-ranking military leaders decided to try to overthrow Hirohito and his planned surrender, continuing the war until every single Japanese was dead, if necessary. That was the only "honorable" possibility. Known historically as the Kyujo Incident, Japan's Longest Day is about this incident.

The day in question was August 14-15, 1945. Hirohito's recorded announcement of surrender was to be played on the 15th. On the night of the 14th Major Kenji Hatanaka and his men spent several hours searching for Hirohito's recording, a recording which was to be played for the nation at noon the next day. Unable to find the recording, the men occupied the NHK Building in an attempt to prevent the broadcast. Hatanaka had support from some factions of the military, but not quite enough to complete his coup. He abandoned the idea, went outside and killed himself.
It is important to know that while the general story is fairly well documented, parts of this graphic novel are speculation. The author opines that Hirohito had been blackmailed from the start to not oppose the war, even though he was generally against it. Potential historical reasons are given.

Two movies have been made about the Kyujo story: The 1967 film entitled, "Japan's Longest Day" and the 2015 film entitled, "The Emperor in August." Both movies are done in Japanese.

The overly picky could point out a few minor annoyances with the manga. First, there are half a dozen or so typos. Secondly, and perhaps it is a necessity and not an annoyance, is that the reader is swamped with many names and titles to keep straight.

One interesting touch is that the manga opens backwards from Western tomes, meaning the spine is on the right, not the left; so, the manga opens like old-style Japanese books did. This add to the authentic Japanese feeling of the manga, which was originally published in Japanese.

Japan's Longest Day is a gripping look at the anatomy of political decision-making under extreme duress. It shows that wars' conclusions can be as perilous and uncertain as wars' geneses. History buffs will be intrigued.

Review by Marshall Hughes, author of Rural Reflections: What 11 Years in Provincial Japan Taught Me.

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Saturday, January 03, 2026

Ishigaki Sea Salt Okinawa Japan

The Taste of the Southern Seas - Ishigaki Sea Salt 石垣島

History | Okinawa | Buy Ishigaki Sea Salt

by Johannes Schonherr

Ishigaki Sea Salt, harvested from the crystal clear waters of Nagura Bay on the subtropical island of Ishigaki in the far southwest of Japan is a strong-tasting, mineral-rich salt bringing the fragrance of Japan's southern seas right to your palate.

The fragrance of a southern island famous for its coral waters, fresh seafood but also for the beef raised further inland. It's a very fine, powder-like salt produced in a small local facility - but wait, maybe we should give the salt a bit of historical context first.

Ishigaki coastline, Okinawa

History

Driving around the Japanese countryside, you sometimes spot a vintage grocery store proudly displaying the words 酒タバコ塩 in a prominent spot next to the name of the business. Those words mean "liquor, tobacco, salt". They also signify that the business had its full accreditation afforded by the government since liquor, tobacco, and salt were under strict state control.

While this is still the case with liquor and tobacco, the Japanese government eventually relaxed the regulations in the case of salt. In 1997, the government lifted all restrictions.

Ishigaki sea salt factory

Soon, small privately-owned sea salt processing facilities sprang up all along Japan's coasts. Stop at any rural seaside michi-no-eki (roadside rest house featuring a permanent and often quite large local farmer's market) and you will find packages of the locally produced sea salt.

From Okhotsk Sea Salt on the northern shore of Hokkaido taken from the waters bordering Siberia all the way down the non-industrial areas of the Sea of Japan coast to Kyushu. There, Amakusa Sea Salt from the Amakusa Islands in Nagasaki is especially sort after. The scenic Japanese Inland Sea has its very own culture of producing sea salt and so does Okinawa.

With that great diversification of locally produced salts, soon a Japanese salt gourmet culture sprang up. People began to compare which salt fitted which dishes best. Salt aficionados took long tours to visit famous salt spots to build up salt collections for their kitchens - so they could choose which salt to use for which dish.

Salt cooker and salt processing by hand

Okinawa

Okinawa became the center of this salt-sampling culture. Paradise Plan, a small company producing especially mild sea salt in a flaky form named Yukishio (Snow Salt) on the island of Miyakojima, was the first to act on the trend. They opened a store named Masuya (salt store) in Naha, the capital of Okinawa, offering 120 kinds of salt sourced worldwide.

From Himalayan rock salt to North American and Mediterranean to obscure stone salts hammered out of the Argentinian Andes, the Naha Masuya had it all. Still, their focus was on local Okinawa salts. By now, you can find Masuya salt stores in Tokyo and other major Japanese cities, employing salt sommeliers who take care of all your salty needs.

Salt cleaning by hand

Ishigaki Sea Salt

One of the most featured salts in any Masuya store is Ishigaki no Shio, Ishigaki Sea Salt from the island of Ishigaki in the Yaeyama archipelago in southern Okinawa.

Located close to Taiwan, Ishigaki has its very own traditional culture. The Yaeyama Islands were once home to 13 different languages, most of them today being considered extinct or close to it.

Walking through the market in Ishigaki City, however, you will overhear plenty of frantic haggling using speech that is decidedly neither Japanese nor Chinese. Those market ladies still make good use of those old languages academic linguists keep worrying about.

Sun drying Ishigaki salt

Enter Tokuhide Togo, a native of the island. A former diver, he was always interested in what the sea had to offer. After the liberation of the salt law in 1997, he turned his occasional experiments with extracting salt from the sea into a business.

Togo's Ishigaki Salt has a much stronger taste than the Miyakojima salt and is a fine powder, applicable to everyday use and simply called Ishigaki no Shio (Ishigaki Salt).

Visitors to the small factory are welcome. There is a small on-site store selling not only the salt in its various forms but also sweets produced using the salt. Delicious stuff. Ishigaki salt cookies are highly recommended.

Ishigaki Sea Salt production steps

A diagram explains, in brief, the patented manufacturing method of the salt: seawater is taken from the bay, sand and stones are filtered out, the water is collected in a tank. The water gets evaporated, thus concentrating the salt. The salt is dried in a sunlit room. Then, it's on to packing and the product is ready for sale.

Pipes take fresh water from the sea

A large glass front gives you a peek inside the main processing room where you can see workers in protective gear handle the salt. Stroll down to the shore. There you see two pipes leading into the clean natural bay. Those are the pipes that take the seawater in for salt production. In the far distance, you see another, smaller but hilly island. To the right, you can see the Omoto-dake, at 526 meters the highest mountain in all of Okinawa. From there, the Nagura River flows down into the sea, assuring a constant cleaning of the water in the bay. Quite a peaceful scenery.

Buy Ishigaki Sea Salt

While a visit to the Ishigaki Sea Salt factory is highly recommended, you can easily buy the salt online from Goods from Japan.

If you are interested in other Japanese sea salts as well, building up a small collection for your kitchen, Goods from Japan will cater to all your needs. Just contact us, we are more than happy to help.

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Mashi: The Unfulfilled Baseball Dreams of Masanori Murakami, the First Japanese Major Leaguer

Thursday, December 25, 2025

Mashi: The Unfulfilled Baseball Dreams of Masanori Murakami

Japan Book Review: Mashi: The Unfulfilled Baseball Dreams of Masanori Murakami, the First Japanese Major Leaguer

by Robert K. Fitts

ISBN: 978-1-4962-1951-0
University of Nebraska Press, 2014
232 pp; paperback

Part-pioneer, part-legend, part wide-eyed innocent kid and (unintentionally) part-baseball troublemaker, Japan's Masanori "Mashi" Murakami had one of the most interesting and consequential careers in baseball history.

In 1964, the Nankai Hawks of Japan's Pacific League sent their promising 19-year-old left-handed pitcher with two other young players to America to improve their skills. While the two other players struggled, Murakami thrived for the Class A (low minor leagues) Fresno Giants, the San Francisco Giants' affiliate.

Mashi: The Unfulfilled Baseball Dreams of Masanori Murakami.

On August 29, Murakami struck out 10 of the 12 batters he faced for a four-inning save. By September 1st, he was pitching in the majors.

The S.F. Giants, deep in a pennant race, desperately needed a left-handed reliever, so bypassing their AA and AAA players, they shockingly called up Murakami. Murakami was thrust into high-pressure situations armed with little more than a savage curveball and pinpoint control. He spoke very little English and knew next to nothing about America.

At that season's end, the Giants offered Murakami a contract for the 1965 season. He quickly signed, even though he was then unable to read English. Problematically, he was already under contract to return to the Nankai Hawks for the 1965 season. The conflict quickly drew the attention of both Japan and America's baseball commissioners, and a legal battle ensued.

It was finally decided that Mashi would pitch for San Francisco for one more year, then return to Japan. Still, the bad blood between the two commissioners and the two leagues resulted in no more Japanese players being allowed to play in America for 30 years. The next Japanese to play in America was the famous Hideo Nomo.

Author Fitts' research for the book is remarkable. He interviewed Murakami three times over a period of 10 years, and gained access to Murakami's diaries. Other players and team personnel made themselves available for interviews, too, and Fitts must have spent many hours poring through old newspaper clippings.

The details on a number of famous incidents – for example the Giants-Dodgers game in 1965 where Giants' star pitcher Juan Marichal cracked Dodgers' catcher John Roseboro over the head with his bat - are fantastic. As a former sportswriter myself who grew up near San Francisco, I knew a lot about this incident, but still got some new information from Fitts.

The book is not just about baseball. There are numerous insights into 1960s social turmoil, but not enough to slow down the pace of the book. Of course, Murakami's personal life is covered, too, starting from when he was just four years old.

The appendix (filled with Murakami's stats) and attributions to his research are impressive.

Note: Mashi is one of three books written by Fitts about Japan and baseball. The others are Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination During the 1934 Tour of Japan, and Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Baseball. These books can be purchased by clicking on the links above.

Review by Marshall Hughes, author of Rural Reflections: What 11 Years in Provincial Japan Taught Me.

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A Geek in Japan: Discovering the Land of Manga, Anime, Zen, and the Tea Ceremony

Saturday, November 08, 2025

A Geek in Japan Book Review

Japan Book Review: A Geek in Japan: Discovering the Land of Manga, Anime, Zen, and the Tea Ceremony

by Hector Garcia

ISBN: 978-4-8053-1129-5
Tuttle Publishing, 2010
160 pp; paperback

A Geek in Japan is a vibrant, visually stunning guide exploring Japanese culture through the eyes of, it would appear, a knowledgeable, hardcore Japanophile, who melds tradition and modernity with enthusiasm and insight.

Helping the book's appeal is its large size of 19x25 cm, or 7.5x10 inches. This allow for hundreds of large, colorful and easy-to-see photos. The sidebars and infographics are equally impressive.

A Geek in Japan

The book covers a lot of ground, starting with the origins of Japanese culture, the traditional arts and the unique Japanese character, including the famous work culture. Then, the geekier parts kick in with sections on society today, the world of manga and anime (what would a book about geeks and Japan be without discussing manga and anime?), modern music and media, and finally travel in Japan in general and in Tokyo in specific.

One of the book's strong suits is its handling of Japanese aesthetics and values; for example ideas such as wabi-sabi (the art and beauty of imperfection) and omotenashi (hospitality), which are found in everything from architecture to interpersonal relationships. Of course, Japan's two major religions of Shinto and Buddhism are discussed, including how they coexist and still influence festivals and daily rituals.

While most of the book is fun and entertaining, there are a few places that dip into the darker side of Japan; for example, suicides and their aftermath, especially for those who cease their existence by jumping in front of trains in Tokyo. Sometimes, their families are fined up to ¥100 million "to cover the cost of cleaning services and delays across the lines."

There are only two possible "issues" about the book, and both are pretty insignificant.

First, since the book was published in 2010, there are a few things that are a bit dated. Tsukiji, long known as the place for 5 a.m. trips to see the active fish market, has closed down. Also, while listing "current" singers and groups, the names Orenji Renge and Kumi Koda among others are mentioned. Today's young and hip probably don't know these names. Also, Yamamba and other short-lived fashions are a bit out of date.

Second, while an impressive number of subjects are covered, none are covered in depth, as no section extends beyond one page. Still, that is a little like criticizing McDonalds for not serving gourmet food: that's not the purpose of the whole thing.

Even self-declared Japanophiles can learn something from the book. After all, who among us can quickly explain the difference between gothic, amaloli, classic, wa, qi and erotic lolitas?

Overall, this book never disappoints.

A Geek in Japan is one of a series of books by Tuttle Publishing. There are also similar looking and similarly laid out "Geek" books about Korea, Thailand, China and Indonesia.

Review by Marshall Hughes, author of Rural Reflections: What 11 Years in Provincial Japan Taught Me.

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Purchase a range of Japanese foodstuffs and drinks from GoodsFromJapan.

Katsuobushi & Katsuobushi Kezuriki

Bonito Flakes in the Kitchen: Katsuobushi and the Katsuobushi Kezuriki 鰹節と鰹節削り器

What is Katsuobushi? | History | Famous Production Areas | Shaving the Katsuobushi | Buy Katsuobushi

Katsuobushi fillet and katsuobushi kezuriki

Remember the first time you were served okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes) in one of those dark, dingy, tiny but homely restaurants in Osaka? The first time you received a boat of takoyaki (wheat batter balls containing a piece of octopus)? Did you wonder what those wildly fluttering flakes on top of the dish? Those flakes almost seem to have a life of their own! It's the heat of the dishes underneath that makes them vibrate.

Those flakes are called katsuobushi and you encounter them in Japan quite frequently and in many different ways. They are used as soup stock, mixed with rice in onigiri rice balls and as topping on an endless variety of dishes ranging from tofu to soba noodles to meat (especially chicken), more recent recipes even include them as toppings on avocado and other imported foods.

Katsuobushi fillets

What is Katsuobushi?

Now, what are those katsuobushi? Roughly translated, katsuobushi means dried bonito flakes. Katsuo is the Japanese name for the skipjack bonito, a fish belonging to the tuna family.

The best meat of those fish, usually caught in the waters surrounding southern Japan, is filleted by hand and knife. Work that needs quite some skill. An experienced worker cuts the fillets from the fish in less than a minute.

Those fillets are then simmered close to the boiling point for an hour or more, then wood smoked up to a month. A smoking session lasts about six hours, then the fillet rests for a day. This process is repeated for about 12 to 15 times. Finally, the fillet is sun-dried for about two weeks with the help of a special mold, the Aspergillus glaucus. The mold ferments the fillet and removes any residual moisture.

When ready for sale, those fillets are hard as wood and brown on the outside, resembling short sticks of firewood. On the inside, they are a blackish purple. After scraping a section of the fillet, the exposed parts glisten in the light like dark, colored glass.

Katsuobushi-centered meal. Katsuobushi-topped tofu, katsuobushi-topped bamboo sprouts, rice mixed with katsuobushi, miso soup using katsuobushi stock.

A katsuobushi-centered meal: katsuobushi-topped tofu, katsuobushi-topped bamboo sprouts, rice mixed with katsuobushi, miso soup using katsuobushi stock

History

Dried bonito is as old as Japan. The most ancient books refer to it as do the legends of the Ainu, the original inhabitants of the islands. Dried bonito could be stored for a long period, it was easy to transport, it was very nutritious and it was very tasty when mixed with rice. That ancient dried bonito was however not the same as the katsuobushi flakes in use today.

Those were invented by a man named Jintaro Kadoya in the Kumano domain (today's Wakayama Prefecture) in the mid-1600s. Kadoya came up with the concept of fumigating the katsuo fillets to preserve them in the best possible way.

Not finding the success with his invention he had hoped for in his native Kumano, Kadoya moved to the Tosa domain on the southern shore of Shikoku (today's Kochi Prefecture). There, the bonito catches were better and the locals embraced Kadoya's production method.

Producing katsuobushi in Tosa proved to be very challenging, however. The climate was wet and mold easily settled on the fillets when set out for sun-drying.

But soon, the Tosa locals producing katsuobushi in Kadoya's way learned how to deal with that ever pervasive mold. They incorporated the mold into the production process, turning the mold from a nuisance into the final step of refinement.

Tosa katsuobushi soon became all the rage on the markets of Edo and Osaka.

The production process was a closely guarded secret but that secret soon leaked out to the Satsuma domain (today's Kagoshima Prefecture). Production conditions in Kagoshima were very similar to those of Tosa (Kochi).

Traditional katsuobushi kezuriki

Famous Production Areas

Kochi and Kagoshima Prefectures are still the main producers of katsuobushi today. They got the brand name recognition, they got the history and the experience of family-run firms dealing with the product for centuries.

Shaving the Katsuobushi

Most common today are factory-shaved katsuobushi flakes. Those are sold in plastic bags in all Japanese supermarkets and they are the most easy to use.

It’s more fun, though, to produce the katsuobushi flakes in your kitchen by yourself. To do so, you need a special tool to shave the flakes from the wood-like katsuobushi fillet.

Traditionally, for this purpose a katsuobushi kezuriki is used. Essentially, that’s a wooden box with a blade inserted. You move the katsuobushi fillet with a certain amount of strength over the blade functioning as a sort of wood plane. The shaved-off flakes are collected in the drawer below the blade.

Working the blade needs a certain amount of practice, though. You need to figure out how exactly to hold the fillet stick and what amount of pressure to apply. If done incorrectly, the result of the shaving will be rather a reddish rough powder than the desired flakes.

That powder is delicious and can be used in salads, for example. But you wanted the flakes, right? The real thing.

Those can be more easily produced using a mechanic katsuobushi shaving machine. Of course, the mechanic shaver leaves you a little short on the experience of cooking in real traditional Japanese style but it provides you with the desired result easily and efficiently.

A katsuobushi fillet and katsuobushi kezuriki

Buy Katsuobushi

Goods from Japan offers all the options, the wood-like fillet sticks and the old-style kezuriki as well as two kinds of mechanic shavers, one named the Okaka and the other the Kakuta-Kun, and of course, the most easy-to-use bagged factory-made katsuobushi flakes.

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The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and Other Short Stories

by Johannes Schonherr

Purchase a Katsuobushi Shaving Machine Kakuta-kun

Monday, October 27, 2025

The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper

Japan Book Review: The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and Other Short Stories

by Rebecca Otowa

ISBN: 978-4-8053-1551-4
Tuttle Publishing, 2020
160 pp; hardback

Short stories that are written about Japan by non-Japanese with decades of experience living in the Land of the Rising Sun are sometimes a mixed bag, but more often than not interesting to read and ponder. Rebecca Otowa's latest work fits in the “interesting to read and ponder” category.

Otowa, the author and illustrator of this book, melds a variety of locales and eras with her own life experiences in telling 13 well-crafted stories. The stories, all of which are set in Japan, range in length from eight to 18 pages.

Most of the stories are set in modern times, although there are stories set in the 1950s, the 1940s and one which is set in the early 17th century. A few of the stories are based on Japanese history and/or Otowa's family history.

Perhaps the reason she can write in such broad strokes covering such ground is her own life story. Otowa was born in America, studied Japanese language and culture in Australia, moved permanently to Japan in the late 1970s, obtained an M.A. in Japanese Buddhism and has been married for 40 years to a 19th generation heir to a Japanese country estate.

The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and Other Short Stories.

Included in the writing are stories touching on hoarding, suspected murders, regret at helping continue generational family abuse, suicide and a 15-year-old's desperate arranged marriage to a 32-year-old war-ravaged solder suffering from PTS. There are also a ghost or two mixed in some stories. Although it is difficult to narrow her themes to just a few, fears of ageing and hardships for Japanese women are themes readers will see more than once.

Otowa's deep knowledge of and experiences with Japan and its culture and people give her a special insight and allows her to write with such depth. People who know Japan well will appreciate this book most, although knowledge of Japan is not necessary to learn and enjoy. Her readers, with their varying levels of knowledge about Japan, will understand the books at different levels.

The usually-clever endings to the stories will alternately lead the reader to feel surprise, disappointment, sadness and at times, wistfulness. The writing is tight, with no red herrings or superfluous characters.

Review by Marshall Hughes, author of Rural Reflections.

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We'll Prescribe You a Cat

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

We'll Prescribe You a Cat

Japan Book Review: We'll Prescribe You a Cat

by Syou Ishida

ISBN: 978-0-593-81874-9
Penguin Random House LLC, 2024
297 pp; hardback

Five patients who are struggling with life's difficulties find their way one by one to the mysterious Nakagyo Kokoro Clinic for the Soul in the back streets of Kyoto. Each meets the same seemingly uncaring receptionist and not-mentally-all-there doctor, and each of the five is given a two-week "prescription" of a cat to solve their problems. Insightful readers can perhaps glean some of this just from the title of the book.

The patients consist of a troubled elementary school girl, two floundering businessmen, a hard-charging working woman and a young geisha; each with their own sets of challenges. All five are puzzled and a little apprehensive about their unique "medicine," and things go haywire for a few of them before the cats' magic starts to work.

Western readers familiar with the Japanese concept of yokai (often defined as a class of supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore) will see a bit of that in the book, especially in the last two of the five chapters. That out-of-norm storytelling is part of the charm of the book.

The cats (Bee, Margot, Koyuki, Tank and Mimita, among a few others) do the magic, but most of the stories are focused on their short-term owners. The cats don't speak or use telepathy or magic.

Being a cat lover will likely raise the chances of readers enjoying the book, although being a feline fanatic is certainly not necessary to be amused by Ishida's writing. The book was originally written in Japanese and some might complain that a few things get fuzzed up in the translation. Perhaps some of that can be explained by people who don't get the yokai concept. Offbeat and quirky are words frequent used by Westerners when discussing Japanese fiction, and both are appropriate for this book.

Originally written for adults, children can also enjoy the book as it is an easy read because even though it checks in at almost 300 pages, the book size is only 5.2 by 7.25 inches (13.2 cm by 18.4 cm).

The book is gaining international acclaim, and the back cover claims that plans are in place for the book to be published in 17 languages. To date, it has been published in English, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Polish.

I wonder how cats say "meow" in Polish.

There is a follow up to this book called, We'll Prescribe You Another Cat.

Review by Marshall Hughes, author of Rural Reflections: What 11 Years in Provincial Japan Taught Me.

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The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper

Buy a 500g Pack of Hidaka Kombu

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Japanese Kelp Kombu (Seaweed)

Japanese Kelp Kombu 昆布

Umami | Kombu in Japanese Cooking | Hokkaido Kombu | Buy Kombu

Dried kombu

Japan being an island country, it may come as no surprise that Japanese cuisine relies heavily on products taken from the sea. Not only fish, shrimps, crabs and other oceanic creatures but also a large variety of seaweed.

Wakame and nori may be the most widely known of these seaweeds outside of Japan. Nori as an essential part of maki sushi (sushi rolls), wakame for the delicious wakame soup accompanying many traditional Japanese dishes.

Then, there is kombu, Japanese edible kelp. Kombu, growing in the cold waters around Hokkaido and parts of Tohoku, made a comparatively late entry into Japanese cuisine.

Sure, kombu was delivered to the court of the Shogun as a tribute by the rulers of the northern domains already in Edo times (1603-1868) but kombu really took off in the general Japanese kitchen during the Meiji period (1868-1912) when Japan fully colonized Hokkaido.

Steam ship ferries and the newly constructed railway system made kombu, previously mainly a staple in Ainu cooking, available all over the country at a low price.

Amazingly, the southern-most island group of Okinawa, only recently acquired after a war with China (1894-95) picked up on the kombu the strongest. Okinawans know what's tasty and are generally more than ready to incorporate new ingredients into their cooking.

Fishing for kombu in Rausu, Hokkaido

Umami

Meanwhile, in mainland Japan, Tokyo Imperial University chemistry professor Kikunae Ikeda (1864-1936) sensed during a meal that featured a soup made of kombu dashi (kombu soup stock) a taste he had never encountered before. It was not in the usual range of sweet, sour, bitter and salty. Ikeda immediately focused his studies on that so far unclassified taste. In 1908, he was able to identify Glutamic acid as the source of this particular taste. Kombu is particularly rich in Glutamic acid.

Ikeda named his newly discovered taste variety umami, drawing from the word umai (delicious) in Japanese. Today, umami is a taste variety recognized world-wide.

Rishiri Kombu at Wakkanai Fish Market, Hokkaido

Kombu in Japanese Cooking

Japanese cooks and housewives most likely missed the newspaper stories reporting Ikeda's discovery. They were the ones to actually put that northern sea weed to real use.

Kombu leaves were large and they usually came air dried, the only way to keep them edible after their long journey from Hokkaido.

Cut up into small pieces and boiled, kombu leaves would make for a perfect dashi soup stock, they soon discovered.

Soups based on kombu by itself, soups using kombu in combination with shaved bonito flakes (katsuobushi), kombu combined with shiitake mushrooms, with dried sardines or tobiuo (flying fish), kombu with any type of vegetable. The combinations are endless.

Soon, kombu dashi became the most popular Japanese soup stock, employed in the making of miso soup (a soup that goes with most traditional Japanese meals) as well as in many other types of soup.

Boiled kombu on the other hand could be a great addition to sashimi fish platters.

Small pieces of kombu were frequently added when preparing sushi rice. The strong umami qualities of kombu bringing out the taste of the rice all the stronger and with it, the taste of the sushi.

Boiled and further processed kombu is also frequently employed as tsukudani (rice toppings), and boiled kombu is often served in Japanese salads.

Thick layers of boiled kombu are also rolled up around minced herring. That particular dish, known as kobumaki has become one of the staples of osechi ryori (New Year's Day dishes) but is also enjoyed in other seasons as part of traditional Japanese meals.

It's usually called kobumaki (and not kombumaki) because kombumaki would be somewhat cumbersome to pronounce. The kobu part of the word is taken from yorokobu, meaning being happy or glad.

Rishiri Island

Hokkaido Kombu

Kombu grows as a dense forest on the ocean floor, often in coastal waters.

In the northern regions of Hokkaido, most famously in the waters near Rishiri Island, a small island off the far northwest of Hokkaido, as well as the sea off the Shiretoko Peninsula in the far northeast of Hokkaido, fishermen harvest naturally grown kombu from their boats.

This type of kombu is marketed as tennen (天然), as a product taken straight from the wilds of nature.

Rishiri Kombu and Rausu Kombu are the most famous varieties of tennen kombu sold in Japan today. Rausu being a very picturesque village on the eastern side of the Shiretoko Peninsula, home to many kombu fishermen braving the cold ocean here.

In the south of Hokkaido, kombu tends to be farmed. That is, the kombu forests grow under direct supervision of the fishermen and are regularly harvested.

The two most famous brands from southern Hokkaido are Hidaka Kombu from the town of Hidaka and Shiroguchihama Kombu produced in an area known as Minami Kayabe.

When cutting Shiroguchihama Kombu, the inside of the leaves turns out to be white. Pure mannitol showing up, the sugar alcohol built up inside the salty plant. It's exactly that mannitol that is responsible for the strong umami taste of kombu.

Minami Kayabe, located near the city of Hakodate in the very south of Hokkaido was a Japanese domain already in Edo times. The local ruler not only paid his tribute to the Shogun in Edo with the locally grown kombu but also delivered it all the way down to the Imperial Court in Kyoto.

Rishiri Kombu

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Kombu as such is generally sold in dried form. When you open a package of dried kombu, some of the dried leaves will have a white residue on them. That is not mold, it is the mannitol making its way to the surface. The very substance responsible for the taste of the kombu.

Dried kombu can be shipped internationally. Kobumaki are best enjoyed on your visit to Japan.

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