SUSHI ORGY IN ONJUKU! On Friday, Tojo-san, Vancouver’s world-renowned sushi master, took charge of my kitchen to prepare an epic Canadian Thanksgiving sushi feast for 15 guests. As you’ll see in the photos, the locally sourced menu featured the debut of the “Onjuku Roll,” with hirame, ise-ebi, asparagus and a secret spicy sauce to honor our town’s 400-year history with Mexico. Tojo has been my friend and poisson-cru guru since 1980, long before he become famous and I became… well, whatever it is I am now. Although I’ve been to Tojo’s Restaurant (tojos) countless times, until Friday he’d never been to my house. But his annual visit to Japan coincided with our collaboration on an Arctic voyage I’m organizing next July to introduce adventurecanada to Japanese adventurers. Tojo-san is coming aboard as guest chef, along with C.W. Nicol. Tojo’s been in Vancouver since 1971, but he’s still a Kagoshima-ken country boy who learned to wield a knife in Osaka’s sushi-samurai culinary trade. So when he arrived in Tokyo on Thursday, apart from a stroll round Ginza department stores and Tsukiji fish market followed by drinks at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan and dinner at Shin-Hinomoto, the legendary izakaya run by my old friend Andy Lunt, there wasn’t much of the capital he cared to see. Still, as we didn’t get back Onjuku and in bed till 1 a.m., Tojo had to wake me up at 8: “John-san, we must start shopping.” Apart from the carton of frozen Canadian sablefish, smoked salmon and matsutake he’d sent ahead, the idea was to use all the best local ingredients we could find in our little fishing/farming community. So we went to Shiratori-san for ise-ebi (rock lobster), kinmedai, hirame, samma, warasa and more. We went to see Iwase-san for locally brewed Iwanoi sake. And we visited Suzuki-san, the rice farmer in my little valley, to get shin-mai – rice harvested last month. Not only did Suzuki refuse payment, he insisted on our picking fresh ginger and onions from his hatake. By this time, Tojo-san was jumping up and down with excitement. I’d already prevailed on the kindness of Inoue-san, who runs wildlife trapping in our hamlet, for inoshishi (wild boar) that I began marinating on Tuesday. And later on Tezuka-sensei brought over his famous tezukuri shoyu – hand-made organic soy sauce. So our locavore credentials were near immaculate. We were still in Suzuki’s vegetable patch at 1:30 p.m. when Tojo began to get antsy: “We’ve got to start cooking now!” That’s when the knives came out. Tojo had been to Sakai in Osaka, from whence come the world’s finest sushi knives, to procure a lethal set of blades engraved with his name. One was quickly inaugurated to slice the fresh-picked ginger (that I washed and scrubbed with a nail brush) that was then boiled and soaked in vinegar to make gari. Two hours as Tojo’s sole sous-chef made me wish for 8 arms until John Lancaster, Hide Katada and Andrew Pothecary arrived. Hide was put on wild boar duty, Andrew chopped chili and Lancaster was sent out to cut fresh bamboo for serving plates. Knives flashed, rice emerged steaming from the rice cooker, pots simmered, every liquid ingredient in the house came out on to the counter… and magic took shape before our eyes. Finally, just before guests began to arrive at six, the amazing results were set artistically on the table. By tradition established when she was Chiba’s governor, Akiko Domoto sat at the head of the table, flanked by Tojo-san and Yuriko Kuronuma, the world-famous violinist who recently retired to Onjuku after 40 years in Mexico. Yuriko’s husband Koyo and sister Toshiko were with her. Genri Goto flew in specially from Fukuoka. Tezuka-sensei came with his wife and daughter. Steve Benfey drove up from the tip of the peninsula. And Gaby, our local forest-dwelling Mazatlana, arrived on Mexican time. I can hardly remember all the dishes: smoked salmon, samma, Tojo’s famous marinated tuna and the piece de resistance: the Onjuku Roll that Tojo-san created especially for the occasion. All were greeted with successive waves of delight, each more giddy than the next as the beverages eased inhibitions. We never even got to the local sake because Domoto-san brought along the best nihonshu I’ve ever tasted, the gold-medal “Dream in Dream” from Matsuo, Chiba. By 10, though, train imperatives meant that most guests departed, leaving four hard-core partiers round the veranda picnic table till after midnight. When we woke round 9 on Saturday we found Tojo-san already at work on sashimi, a rice salad and a hotpot of kinmedai and matsutake. This is the only time I will ever admit to drinking Yebisu beer for breakfast. After lunch, it was time to take Tojo-san to Narita and his flight back to Vancouver. I’m still recovering, but I have much for which to be thankful.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 12:42:01 +0000
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