Gastronomy tourism in Tokyo: A true taste of Edo

‘It can be hard to explain katsuobushi to people who have never tried it,’ says Mai Nagamatsu, owner and chef of Katsuo Shokudo. ‘They walk in, sit down, and wonder what these things in front of them on the counter are. Some people ask if they are pieces of wood.’

Nagamatsu’s elegant solution is to hold these rock-hard grey-black blocks up next to a model of a fish. ‘They sometimes don’t believe me,’ she smiles. The fish in question is a bonito (aka skipjack), a variety of tuna known as katsuo in Japanese. These fish were highly prized in Edo, with the Tokugawa shoguns being presented annually with hatsugatsuo, the first katsuo caught each year.

While katsuo can also be served raw or seared, the most popular way to consume the fish is as katsuobushi. These delicate pink flakes are used to make dashi stock, the foundation of many Japanese dishes. But they can also be eaten as toppings on everything from noodles to rice to okonomiyaki. Katsuobushi was a key component of Edo’s culinary culture: katsuo was transported to the city from western Japan, and had to be dried and fermented to remain edible after the long journey. The people of Edo took a liking to the mildly aromatic flavour that resulted.

At Katsuo Shokudo, Nagamatsu shaves the katsuobushi flakes directly from the rock-hard blocks on what looks like an upside-down carpenter’s plane. She serves the katsuobushi simply, atop rice, along with miso soup, side dishes, and an egg to crack over the rice if you wish. The flakes feature in every element of this satisfying set meal.

Nagamatsu has come to view katsuobushi as one of Japan’s most enduring culinary traditions. ‘I saw my grandmother preparing katsuobushi with the tool my grandfather gave her when he was still alive. And I learned that pots from thousands of years ago containing katsuo bones had been found in Japan. It made me want to show my generation here – and people from around the world – that katsuobushi is a legacy to be cherished.’

Being small, beautiful and useful, chopsticks are an ideal souvenir or gift from Japan. And you can buy them almost anywhere: department stores, fine art galleries, even 100-yen shops.

But what if you could make your own chopsticks under the expert guidance of a master carpenter? At Mogami Kogei, a traditional joinery and carpentry shop located in Kuramae, you can do just that. Mogami Kogei specialises in Edo Sashimono, wooden crafts made using traditional techniques that were developed primarily in Tokyo from the Edo period (1603–1867) onward.

Start by selecting which wood to use from a choice of maple, ash, oak, pine or cypress based on your preference for colour, grain and texture. Once you have made your choice, learn how to shape the wood using a carpenter’s plane and sandpaper into your own original pair of chopsticks.

Your guide through the experience will be Yutaka Mogami, third-generation proprietor of the workshop. His family’s shop was destroyed during the air raids of World War II, but Mogami’s father was determined not to lose his business and its traditional joinery techniques passed down from the Edo period. Having hidden some of his tools inside a nearby manhole, he rebuilt the shop where his son and grandson now work side by side.

If you wish, you can take home your creations in a gorgeous chopsticks box made of paulownia wood by the artisans of Mogami Kogei. And as you use your new chopsticks, you’re sure to gain a newfound appreciation for the old city’s culinary culture.

No matter where we come from, we all understand the idea of comfort food. Sometimes we just want a taste of the familiar that reminds us of home. As the great city of Edo grew and developed from the 1600s onward, people from all over Japan flocked (or were compelled to flock) to the new capital. Inevitably, they brought their comfort foods with them. One of these foods was soba noodles.

Muromachi Sunaba, a soba restaurant in Kanda near Tokyo Station, is one surviving descendant of this culinary migration. The latter half of the restaurant’s name – ‘sand place’ – comes from the original, long ago closed shop in Osaka, which was located near a sand quarry. In the Edo-period equivalent of franchising, Sunaba opened its first branch in Edo in 1782. Due to a plethora of large construction works, Edo had a high population of adult men doing manual labour, which created huge demand for quick, hearty, salty food. Udon had been the noodle of choice in Edo’s early history, but with the arrival of Sunaba and other soba eateries, it soon had a serious rival. Advances in cooking techniques and the rising popularity of flavourful soy sauce made it possible for casual and tasty soba to emerge as one of Edo’s favourite foods.

At Muromachi Sunaba in Kanda, built in 1870, you can enjoy a delicious meal of buckwheat noodles to this day. The restaurant’s Edo-style soba features a dipping sauce made with rich, dark soy sauce. If you dip about one-third of the noodles into the sauce and slurp them up while allowing air to enter, you can savour the authentic aroma of the soba just like they did it back in Edo. Sunaba’s chilled morisoba is perfect with tempura, while their hot hanamaki soba – made with an Edo-period recipe – comes with a lid on the bowl that opens to a hearty aroma of nori seaweed and soy sauce that presages the deep flavours of the noodles and broth inside. An English menu is available.

The origins of tsukudani hearken back to a surprising bond between a leader and his people. After his ally Oda Nobunaga was betrayed and assassinated in 1582, future shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu was forced to flee for his life. Faced with a river crossing in Osaka with his enemies in hot pursuit, Ieyasu was rescued by fishermen from the village of Tsukuda, who also provided him with a supply of salted fish for his onward journey.

Ieyasu eventually defeated his adversaries and moved the capital city to Edo, where he founded a family dynasty that ruled Japan until 1868. Remembering the kindness of the fishermen, he invited them to come to Edo to supply his court with fish. The island in Edo Bay where they settled became known as Tsukudajima and the fishermen there started making tsukudani – a quick, casual and non-perishable dish that became a delicacy beloved across Edo.

Tsukudani is made by simmering seaweed and seafood (or meat) in soy sauce and mirin. It’s often eaten accompanied by rice, and some varieties make great snacks to savour with beer or sake. In recent years, some have even started pairing tsukudani with bread or pasta. To taste it for yourself, visit Shinbashi Tamakiya, an Edo tsukudani specialist founded in 1782. You will be in illustrious company: Albert Einstein visited the shop in 1922 and was deeply enamoured of the shredded kombu kelp tsukudani.

Shinbashi Tamakiya offers a workshop where you can taste different varieties of tsukudani while learning to make onigiri rice balls. Don a traditional happi coat and sit in front of the store’s original wooden sign as you shape the rice into a triangle around the tsukudani of your choice. You can then sprinkle furikake seasoning on top, or mix it with the rice alongside the tsukudani. One bite is all it takes to understand why this once humble fishermen’s food has endured until this day.

To learn more about the culture and history of Edo and how to experience it in today’s Tokyo, see this website by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Bureau of Citizens, Culture and Sports.