【Toyokuni Brewery】 Atmospheric French Course Lunch at a Two-Centuries-Old Brewery

This year, the brewery is undergoing large-scale renovation, being turned into a place for people to gather. Yanai-san is also deeply involved in local revitalization, by developing new content for experiencing Furudono’s nature and culture.

Furudono, town on the ‘Salt Road’

Furudono Town is located in the south-east part of Fukushima Prefecture, and developed as a mercantile town along the ‘Salt Road’, along which both salt and fishery products were shipped from Iwaki on the Pacific Coast, further inland towards the towns of Sukagawa and Shirakawa.

The Toyokuni Brewery in the center of Furudono Town, along the Gozaisho-Road.

The Yanai family also traces its origins, instead of always having been sake brewers. Usually sake breweries develop in major rice producing areas with wide open plains, or at castle towns where the demand for quality products was high. Yet, Furudono was not a castle town, and instead of open plains, it is located in a valley in the Abukuma  mountain range. The Toyokuni Brewery, however, managed to flourish by producing its sake for the local population.

The challenges of the 9th generation brewer

The Toyokuni Brewery goes back 200 years, to the late Edo Period (mid-19th century). Kensei Yanai, the 9th generation brewery owner, returned to Fukushima after graduating college and joined the family company, the brewery. At that time, ‘Azuma Toyokuni’ was still the brewery’s major brand, and the brewery’s management was in the hands of his father, the owner and toji (master brewer). Having been born in a sake-brewing family, once Yanai-san decided to take over the business, he wanted to make sake of his own. That is why the young brewery owner decided to learn the brewing process from his father and was able to imitate the craft to make his first sake. This became the first batch of his very own sake brand, established in 2011: ‘Ibuki’. Meaning ‘one step’, this truly was the first step into the world of sake for the 9th generation brewery owner and toji.

The sentiment behind Ibuki

In 2012, Ibuki took the first place in the National Nambu Toji Sake Competition, putting the 9th generation brewer in the spotlight very early. Wining prizes at the Nambu Toji Sake Competition as well as the Tohoku Sake Awards, he soon became one of Tohoku’s most famous brewers. But as much praise he receives, he never forgets about his first sake-brewing days. “The sake brewing process is endless. In only half a year, you have to take it one step at a time. I am very protective of this process.”

Moreover, the sake brewing process is a joint project together with the brewing staff, and keeps being challenging, year after year. This is because the so-called shikomi, the preparation, or starting phase of brewing, only takes place once a year, and determines the quality of the product for the whole year. Besides one step, the word Ibuki can also mean ‘breath.’ This name was given to the sake by Yanai-san to express vitality and energy, as well as the will to carefully brew sake, one step at a time.

Also, this year the brewery’s annex storage is undergoing a large-scale renovation. The white plaster walls and thick beams breathes the atmosphere of an industrial sake brewery. Maintaining this vibe, but introducing modern equipment, Yanai-san is determined to turn it into a space for events, and where customers can taste sake. He hopes not only to promote his own brewery but the whole of Furudono Town. The day this dream of a new regional vitalization hub is realized, may not be that far away.

Yanai-san sharing his hopes and dreams for the storage’s renovation.

We are convinced that, with the input from the brewery, we’ll get a glipse of a new world of Chef Matsuoka.

Strawberry, nameko mushrooms, Koriyama’s brand vegetables, wine and… sake

Chef Matsuoka has featured in FoodCamp several times already, introducing different ingredients every time. His repertoire has been exceedingly varied, ranging from strawberries to nameko mushrooms, and from Koriyama brand vegetables to wine. Chef Matsuoka is always happy to go on site to learn about local products as well as their producers, and what makes them special. He also takes the atmosphere of the location into consideration, in order to prepare an original one-day menu for the occasion. The contents of these menus can be playful and always have a story behind them. With his own, characteristic inventiveness and proven skill, as well as a deep-seated sense of service, he always manages to please the customers. Chef Matsuoka traces all of this back to a memory of his childhood.

For the Suzuki-& Madoka Farms edition of FoodCamp, Chef Matsuoka devised an appetizer shaped like a nameko-mushroom pod.

Wanting to make people happy

Chef Matsuoka is originally from the city of Maebashi, in Gunma Prefecture. As a child, he wasn’t all that interested in food, but the thing he loved most was the fried shrimp set menu at the department store his mother often went to. At that time, it was about 1400 yen, but his mother always complied with his wishes. Remember this, he ponders: “Maybe she just had a strong desire to make her children happy, by presenting them with some luxury.”  This became a formative experience for the Chef Matsuoka of today.

Chef Matsuoka always greatly enjoys FoodCamp himself.

The atmosphere of a sake brewery

It was Chef Matsuoka’s first ever visit to the Toyokuni Brewery. Glancing over at the entrance, where a sugitama (a ball of cedar that changes colors indicating the state of the sake process, often hung at the entrance of breweries as a type of advertisement) hangs, he strikes up a conversation with Yanai-san. He is excited by the imposing gate, the well-kept garden and the thick beams and pillars that make one feel the history of the place, and seems to be imagining the long years of sake brewing that have been spent here. The under-renovation storage building may look solemn from the outside, but on the inside it is becoming a very modern space, bound to become a new gathering spot.

We are looking forward to the way Chef Matsuoka will express this contrast between old and new, and create a course meal entwining his favored French cuisine with Japanese sake, in his own particular way.

Chef Matsuoka trying to gain inspiration from the brewery

His mother, Keiko-san, helps keep local food traditions alive. At Ozawa Farm, new styles of agriculture and traditional lifestyles coexist, adding to the beauty of the town of Furudono.

Rice farming, livestock holding, fruit farming + working in the brewery

Yoshinori Ozawa’s main source of income is the cultivation of rice. However, in the spirit of modern ‘parallel work’ he is expanding into other fields of agriculture. From spring to fall, the busiest farming season, he not only works to produce rice, but also grows vegetables and fruit, as well as raising sheep for mutton. After the busy season, in winter, he works as an employee at the Toyokuni Sake Brewery! This means he is not only the producer of rice for Ibuki Sake, he is actually one of its makers as well!

Amidst the paddies where Ibuki’s sake rice is grown

Ozawa-san hasn’t been growing rice for that long yet. Originally, his family had a dairy farm, but after the disaster of 2011, they made the shift to rice farming. The fact that Furudono Town, like many other place in Japan, is suffering from a shortage of young people taking over farming business, was not lost on Ozawa-san, who worked a white collar job until just a few years back. What started as something like “Well, guess I’ll do it then,” gradually developed into something bigger.

Ozawa-san slowly grew into the role of a farmer

Doing what you want

He was 34 years old when he made the change. The notion that “If I can work together with my parents when they’re still active, there’s bound to be more to learn,” is what made him quit his job and become a farmer.  Of course, all he needed was already there, with the farmland and a teacher. However, Ozawa-san felt that if he was going to do it, he wanted to do something new, and actively started exploring his own style. The grape vines he planted a few years back were starting to bear fruit. He didn’t particularly study hard to learn about agriculture, but perhaps it just came more naturally to him than he thought, being a farmer’s (oldest) son.

Growing his grapes in a greenhouse, they hardly suffer from diseases and pests and require little to no pesticides.

Amidst this big change of lifestyle, it was Yanai-san who approached him with the idea of brewing sake together. This is how he became a winter-only sake brewer, as well as the cultivator of rice for Ibuki. It’s clear that seeing everything Yanai-san was doing with the only sake brewery in the region was a big inspiration to Ozawa-san.

Miyamanishiki-rice, about to become Ibuki sake.

The mother of Furudono, passing on local food traditions

There is one more star of this FoodCamp that we surely cannot forget: Keiko Ozawa, the mother of Ozawa-san. Keiko Ozawa was born in the town of Furudono. She noticed how many of the local delicacies she used to enjoy, such as agemanma and goboppa-shimimochi were starting to disappear more and more from daily life.

A set of Keiko-san’s homemade local traditional sweets

Furudono Town’s local dishes are simple but very nourishing, as well as heartwarming. Keiko-san started talking to local elderly citizens about the dishes they regularly made, and would like to pass on to the next generation. Often, she would hear things from the people she talked to, like: “[…]-san who lives down the road has a great recipe, but […]-san’s is even better!,” and before she knew it she had managed to collect and relay many a great recipe. Nowadays, when people things of a mother in Furudono Town, Keiko Ozawa is the first one to come to mind.

The straightforward and characteristic Ozawa-san in her always warm workshop.

This edition of FoodCamp, Furudono Town will go all out! We are looking forward to presenting our guests with a warm and fun day in Furudono.