Nov 29,2018
Akita has a long-standing, diverse, and deeply rooted fermentation culture. The prefecture has produced numerous fermented foods — including soy sauce, miso, shottsuru (a salted and fermented fish sauce unique to Akita), pickles, natto fermented soybeans, and saké — due to its northern snowy climate and the need to preserve foods. On one side, you have people striving to preserve these traditional foods and their methods; on the other, you have people trying to protect these traditions while extending them to suit our modern times.
In this series of three articles, we will provide an overview of the state of fermentation in Akita today and introduce some of the people working hard to pass on fermentation to the next generation.
This first article features shottsuru, a traditional Akita fermented seasoning and one of Japan’s three great fish sauces alongside ikanago soy sauce from Kagawa and ishiru from Noto Peninsula. We visited Moroi Jozojo, a venerable 88-year-old brewery that produces soy sauce, miso, and shottsuru in the Funagawa area of the town of Oga. There, we spoke with Moroi Hideki, the brewery’s third-generation owner, about his efforts to revive and promote Akita shottsuru, which is made with just salt and a local Akita fish called hatahata (sailfin sandfish).
The basic way to make shottsuru is to pack seafood and sun-dried salt into storage barrels, letting them ferment and age for a long time while occasionally stirring the mixture. The origins of shottsuru date back to the beginning of the Edo period (1603 to 1868). It was once commonplace for households in Akita, especially those engaged in fishing, to make their own shottsuru and have it on the dinner table.
“Akita has a traditional local dish called shottsuru nabe [hotpot]. From the beginning, shottsuru was treated simply as a seasoning to flavor this type of nabe. Unfortunately, shottsuru gradually fell into obscurity over time for a number of reasons, such as the declining catch of hatahata, the prime ingredient, and changes in Japanese people’s diets. This happened because shottsuru is a traditional seasoning, but not necessarily an essential one. By the 1960s, few households used shottsuru anymore, and it was on the verge of disappearing when our company started producing it.”
Moroi Hideki, the third-generation owner of Moroi Jozojo
The shottsuru culture of Akita was quickly fading into the past. Hauls of hatahata declined sharply in the 1970s, and by the 1990s, the species was on the brink of extinction. As shottsuru vanished from dining tables and the number of producers dwindled, Moroi, who had previously focused mainly on miso and soy sauce production, resolved to take on the making of shottsuru.
“In the 1960s, there were some 25 shottsuru producers in Akita Prefecture, but by around 1990, that number had dropped to just four or five. In an era of mass production and consumption, shottsuru simply didn’t fit in. I feared that the shottsuru culture would disappear completely, so I began making it with little idea of what I was doing.”
Photos of the past hatahata fishing trade adorn the offices of Moroi Jozojo
Local fishers began a voluntary ban on hatahata fishing in 1992 to save the species from extinction. Thanks to their efforts, hatahata rebounded in numbers three years later.
“I started producing shottsuru just as they put a complete ban on hatahata fishing. This meant I was starting out at a time when there was no fish. What’s more, as our business was in miso and soy sauce production, I didn’t really have a clue about making authentic shottsuru. At the time, no shottsuru was being made with hatahata in Akita. So I had little choice but to experiment with other species of fish and try various fermentation processes. It was challenging in many ways.
“I tried adding the koji [rice malt] we use for soy sauce, but it turned the sauce pitch black and killed off most of the fish aroma. It was more like fish soy sauce than fish sauce and far from the real thing. I realized that amber-colored sauce created by simply giving it plenty of time was the authentic shottsuru. That discovery fueled my desire to bring back the classic shottsuru made with hatahata.”
Later, in 1998, Moroi launched a shottsuru research group and got serious about developing the fish sauce. Around that time, the public had started to pay more attention to fish sauce for a variety of reasons.
“One major factor was the boom in Asian cuisine. People became more knowledgeable about fish sauces as they became familiar with nam pla from Thailand and nuoc mam from Vietnam. The next thing that happened was the ban on using beef bone meal in seasonings due to an outbreak of mad cow disease. This sparked a renewed interest in using fish sauce, which uses animal-based ingredients, as a new seasoning. Also playing a role was the increase in marine-product processors making use of seafood byproducts and turning former waste products into food as part of an ecological movement. As all these factors began to align, we could see signs of a recovery for Japanese fish sauce, albeit at a small scale.”
After a decade of hard work, Moroi Jozojo finally launched a shottsuru product. The end goal, however, was not simply to produce and sell products. Moroi’s objective was to promote shottsuru and increase the number of producers while getting a bottle of the fish sauce into every household. Using his products as a calling card, Moroi conveys information about shottsuru from Akita to all corners of the country.
“We spelled out shottsuru phonetically on all our products and promotional materials because not everyone is familiar with the reading of the word’s kanji characters. Fortunately, now, the phonetic hiragana spelling is more widely recognized than the kanji version. Additionally, we have continued developing various products to extend our product line, with such offerings as Totomi, a fish sauce that blends sardines, hatahata, and kelp, and Junen Jukusen, which is a shottsuru sauce aged for 10 years. We have also put out collaboration products with other producers, such as shottsuru-flavored snacks, and entered Oga Shottsuru Yakisoba [Oga-style stir-fried soba noodles with a shottsuru flavor] at the B-1 Grand Prix food competition. Through these efforts, we have tried to build a presence and momentum for shottsuru. We’ve invited food journalists to visit and experience first-hand the making of shottsuru. Because, in the end, it is more important to get people to know about shottsuru than to move products.”
Moroi Jozojo’s signature product, Akita Shottsuru, is produced using a proprietary process and aged for three years
From the left, Akita Shottsuru, Totomi — a modern twist on orthodox shottsuru, and Junen Jukusen, which is aged for an unprecedented 10 years
Moroi is actively trying many new ideas and concepts to spread the shottsuru message to a broader audience. It was surprising, then, to discover that the source of his motivation was slow food, a concept first developed in Italy.
“A friend of mine introduced me to the slow food concept, which was what first really changed my thinking. I realized that reevaluating and reviving the traditional foods that people long ago used to eat was at the heart of my craft. I also learned the importance of local production for local consumption — that is, creating connections with the local region and making use of that region’s resources. I felt that even if the main ingredient, that is hatahata, becomes scarce, the people producing authentic shottsuru cannot be allowed to disappear. The key words are food and industry and tourism, plus food education. This involves the fishers, the producers like myself, the chefs and cooks, and the people who rally around shottsuru. It is my hope that the culture of shottsuru forms connections in this way.”
Barrels where shottsuru matures are arranged by the year they were filled
Moroi is very active in communicating how to use shottsuru in everyday home cooking in order to spread the culture of shottsuru. We ended our conversation with a question about his recommended ways to use shottsuru.
“It goes well with basically anything … grilled dishes, stir-fries, simmered dishes. Shottsuru nabe is a given, but it also works well in pasta, fried rice, yakisoba, soups, curries, and as a seasoning for dishes like ohitashi boiled greens. Additionally, you can use shottsuru instead of water to wet your hands before forming onigiri rice balls, which adds more flavor. However, shottsuru has a salt content of 20 percent, so take care not to use too much of it.”
My Shottsuru Spray comes in a popular and convenient spray bottle. Readily portable, the spray bottle lets you easily control the amount you apply to your cooking.
Moroi Jozojo even runs a shottsuru cooking contest that invites users to submit recipes using shottsuru. From the submissions, you can see how truly universal shottsuru is, as you can use it much like soy sauce.
Although shottsuru is no longer a staple seasoning found in every household in Akita, Moroi remains committed to making shottsuru with traditional ingredients and deploys various strategies to promote its presence nationwide and even globally. Today, shottsuru has become nearly synonymous with Akita, and shottsuru-based products are widely available in local souvenir shops. We hope that the day will soon come when shottsuru is a staple seasoning not only in Akita but throughout the country.
No.1
No.2
No.3
No.4
No.5