Buoyed by a Sea of Sake
Smoke Signals—None of his many experiences in Japan had prepared chef Josh DeChellis for the pride of place and devotion to local ingredients he discovered off the beaten path in Niigata and on Sado Island.
Josh DeChellis
Posted: May 5, 2009
Every time I visit Japan I'm thrown totally out of sorts. There I'll be, surrounded by millions in Tokyo, yet feeling completely isolated, separated from everyone by a language, an alphabet, and food that are as foreign as it gets. Oddly, it's an exhilarating experience that leaves me with a refreshed sense of life. Yet on a recent trip to Japan I experienced a whole different feeling in a place where the absence of Tokyo's bright lights and punishing pace allowed me to focus on one region's gastronomic cycle of life.
The Niigata Prefecture sits on the western edge of the country along the Sea of Japan and includes the namesake port city of some 800,000 inhabitants and Sado Island, an area once used as the last stop for those punished by banishment. I arrived there last year in early spring, when the first new vegetables from mountainside gardens, the local buri, the adult yellowtail, and nanban ebi, shrimp named for their red chile pepper-like appearance, grace the best restaurants. But the real action is in the area's 95 sake breweries, which mark the end of annual production with a celebratory sake festival. Last year, 92 of them were present at the affair. H0kusetu brewery produced special nama sake just for the occasion, pouring it alongside some 500 others that showed off particular house styles. Nama means unpasteurized sake, and it is usually genshu, meaning cask-strength (most sake is diluted with water after brewing to lessen the concentration and allow the flavors to become more soluble on the palate).
I was lucky enough to score a coveted seat at a ceremonial dinner held by the sake council. Long tables were loaded with small dishes composed from local foods. Live, flipping nanban ebi were served caged in a glass bowl and eaten in the purest sashimi style. The ebi were also served in a lightly fried ball bound with grated yama imo (Japanese yam), which gave the mashed shrimp a more giving and therefore sophisticated texture than would a Western farce bound by egg protein. I ate fresh slimy oga nori (seaweed) served in an umami-laced dashi broth next to simply broiled Spanish mackerel with lemon and young ginger shoots. The clarity of these dishes epitomized the Japanese's respect for nature and their affinity for clean, natural flavors.
Seven sakes were served, all with their brewers present, each sample exhibiting a delightfully different personality, as do the houses that brew them. Most of these breweries are generations old and, in fact, brewers follow house styles established years earlier. The meal ended with buri/octopus shabu-shabu and local fish prepared sushi-style by a chef who worked kneeling on the soft rush straw tatami mat covering the floor. The wonderful meal represented more than just great dining. It delivered a strong, clear, and lasting sense of the local surroundings, a food-induced feeling often lacking in Tokyo.
Quickly sobered by the crisp sea air on the ferry, I couldn't wait to set foot on Sado Island, our next stop. Since Sado was once home to exiled criminals, it's still relatively unpopulated (some 66,000 residents on the 330-square-mile island) and its food culture almost undiluted by mainland influences. On Sado there are prized rice fields, natural hot springs (onsen), fishing villages, sake breweries, and even an abandoned gold mine. A tour of Hokusetsu brewery on Sado's eastern coast provided the outline of what could be a lifelong course in sake production. All of Niigata's brewers believe that water quality is paramount to producing excellent sake, and Hokusetsu, like many others, is built close to the best water. The bones of the brewery itself are tucked into the base of one of the mountains in order to take advantage of runoff from its snowcap. The toji (brew-master) explained the process of selecting and cooking the rice, depending on what kind of sake is being brewed; the physics and chemistry of the koji, the rice culture made with yeasts that makes fermentation possible; and the fermenting of the moromi, the base of live culture to which water and more rice are later added. Then he took me to see sake in various stages of fermentation in the tanks.
There are many nuances to account for in sake production, making each unique to its house. My unabridged education was highlighted by tasting a top-tier junmai ginjo ready for filtering the next day. Standing on a scaffold, the brewmaster dropped a long stainless-steel ladle into the one-story-tall tank and pulled out a sample. The perfume of live fermenting sake is just that—alive—with citrus, exotic fruit, and coconut sensations all roughly balanced by the steely alcohol and the vaguely starchy viscosity of the sake lees. After that taste, a breath of the brewery's cold air perfumed lightly by the cedar planks of which it is built pulls the region's damp mountainous terroir into a final layer of flavor. The cold air and humidity battle certain bacteria and are said to facilitate the production of koji.
The final stop was the storage room for bottled sakes. The room is built right into the mountain, deep enough so little or no refrigeration is required, depending on time of year. Also, music is played for the sake while they sit, a technique designed to simulate the gentle vibrations of premodern transportation, which were said to have improved quality. The VIP bottle is labeled YK 35: Y for the variety of rice (Yamada nishiki), K for the type of yeast (kyokai 9-go), and 35 to reflect that the rice has been polished to 35 percent of its original mass. This classically smooth and soft ginjo-style sake transported an aroma of exotic fruits. This rice, a prized variety recognized by all sake producers, though, is not from Niigata but rather is grown in Hyogo Prefecture.
Most Niigata sake is made from a rice called Gohyakumangoku, which delivers a very sophisticated taste but is hard to polish due to its soft outer layer. So the Niigata Prefectural Sake Research Institute and the Niigata Agricultural Research Institute joined forces to introduce an easier-to-polish hybrid called Koshi-Tanrei that can be grown locally. In addition, it has another beneficial characteristic: it can be aged to produce sake that is released in autumn. The commitment to relying on purely Niigatan grown rice has led to this breakthrough, an example of applying technology to further self-sustainability.
After a day sampling sake and eating local spider crabs at a roadside shack, I arrived at Hotel Azuma, a ryokan built around a natural hot spring called onsen. These ryokan (traditional Japanese hotels) call for an entire day's worth of relaxation, dégustation, and contemplation. Traditional robes were laid out in tatami-style rooms with views of the Sea of Japan and snow-capped mountains. As I slid into an outdoor hot spring at dusk, a chilly sea breeze kept me keen to my surroundings. Once fully relaxed, I headed downstairs for the inn's omakase dinner. The spirit of early spring turned up in a light tempura of young bamboo hearts and nanban ebi wrapped in crisp scallion-like leaves. A standout—sayori (needlefish) in a tangle of spring alliums and seaweed served sunomono-style (lightly vinegared)—somehow drew a picture of fresh earth and clean crisp sea in one humble dish. Local snow crab was served as sashimi, with the meat gushing bracing spurts of clean crab-tinged seawater. Yari ika, a large local squid, was cut into strands of thick noodles that betrayed the dense yet tender texture only the freshest squid posses. Koshihikari rice grown in Niigata, understood to be the best in Japan, was steamed right on the table, and once the lid came off the pot, a teasingly soft almost relaxing aroma arose.
After 15 dishes or so, the sashimi arrived: buri, ebi, fluke, and mackerel that had been expertly handled from hook to plate, eaten only a few miles from their habitat. Astonishing! The buri didn't bear any resemblance to even the best examples of hamachi available in the United States. It wasn't soft and fatty. Instead, its tightly woven layers of fat and protein felt toothsome and clean, giving me second thoughts about high-end sashimi/sushi in the United States. In the end, local freshness effortlessly trumps imported fish every time.
Like everything on Sado, the diverse landscape makes for interesting microclimates and differences in terroir. I ate at Hana no Ki, a little restaurant perched on a flat overlook rising above the Sea of Japan that prizes the local camellia flower for its unusually thick, almost flavorless oil. Years back, the restaurant's owner and husband came to Sado for what was to be the final months of his life. Months turned into 35 years after medicinal treatment with camellia. Her personal debt to the flower is represented in the meals she serves every day with the help of her daughter. She fries camellia flowers in their own oil and also infuses the oil with herbs and ginger. There's always a bottle of the camellia oil on the table that can be used to dress certain dishes. Sea snails, handmade tofu, marinated vegetables, and camellia flower tempura make for a great lunch. Refreshing views of the coast and the thought of tacking on a few extra years certainly didn't hurt, either!
Josh DeChellis, executive chef of the reincarnation of La Fonda del Sol in New York City, won a following and acclaim for his Japanese-inflected cooking at Sumile and BarFry.
SIPPING SAKE
Numerous books have been devoted to sake and its many complexities, variations, nuances, and interpretations. But before venturing that far afield, here, for brevity's sake, are a few saké basics:
Sake is produced from rice that has had the external fatty layer of its kernel polished following the removal its husk. Junmai, literally "pure rice," describes a dry style of sake made from rice polished to leave at least 70 percent of its original mass, with no alcohol added to the final product. Ginjo, from rice polished to leave at least 60 percent, has more body, with softer, more floral tones. Daiginjo at 50 percent, is silky smooth and floral, with exotic fruits in the nose. Any time junmai appears as the first word in front of ginjo or daiginjo, it means no alcohol has been added. Nama sake indicates the sake hasn't been pasteurized. And genshu means cask-strength, with no water having been added to dilute the batch.
What's best about going to Japan is being able to taste fresh nama genshu. In most cases, sake is best consumed immediately after its brewed because the subtle aromas are at their liveliest. There's one more style worth noting—koshu sake, an aged sake (up to 10 years) of stunning complexity.
Sake service is quite simple; most of the time the only discussion is whether to serve it in a glass or porcelain drinking vessel. The radius of the glass has a huge impact on how sake registers on the palate. A large rimmed glass tends to separate the aromas and flavors. That's why I prefer a slimmer rimmed cup that forces the sensory elements more directly toward the flavor receptors. Having said that, I also enjoy drinking the same sake out of two different cups. When to drink certain sakes depends largely on who's serving them, but for the most part nama and genshu are served first, followed by some drier styles and then more rounded ones during the course of a kaiseki (formalized tasting) meal.
