Japanese whisky starts from sake

Nowadays, Japanese whisky is reaping lots of international praise - The Guardian recently wrote about Nikka's world-beating single malt, Yoichi, distilled in a pristine place in Hokkaido:

It is hard to imagine a place more suited to producing fine malt whisky. Surrounded by mountains on three sides and volatile open sea on the other, and fed by the pristine waters of a fast-flowing river, it is the stuff of distillers' dreams.

Among the many awards Nikka has won, is the prize of "World's Best Single Malt Whisky" in 2008, for its 21-year old (vintage 1987) Yoichi. Indeed, Yoichi is a rich and peaty malt, but I won't be buying the prize winner any time soon as its sets you back about US $270! Nikka still uses coal fires to heat its pot stills, a labor intensive method given up by most distilleries in Scotland.

As a sake fan, I was pleased to notice that Japanese whisky had its origins in sake. Nikka was founded by the "Father of Japanese Whisky," Taketsuru Masataka (1994-1979), who was born in "sake town" Takehara near Hiroshima, in a family that still produces fine sakes (Taketsuru Sake Brewery, founded in 1733, only makes exclusive junmai sakes). He learned the fine art of whisky distilling in Scotland, where he also found his wife, Rita. After returning to Japan, he first worked for the company that later was named Suntory and established the renowned Yamazaki Distillery. In the thirties he struck out on his own and set up Nikka Whiskey in Yoichi, near Sapporo. The company is now part of the Asahi Beer group. In this way, one great man stood at the head of all major whisky endeavors in Japan.

Suntory, by the way, won the best blended whisky award with its 30-year-old Hibiki, also in 2008, and that reminds me that I still plan to visit their Yamazaki Distillery between Kyoto and Osaka - I'll come back on it after the tour (Yoichi sounds great, too, but is a bit far...).

Japan has come a long way from the terrible mizuwari (water with some whisky in it) boom of the last quarter of the 20th century. You can in fact observe similar movements in sake and in whisky: a shift from mass-produced cheap stuff to high value-added products.

Review: What I Talk about when I Talk about Running (Murakami)

Murakami Haruki has written several bookshelves full of non-fiction works, usually still available as "bunkobon" (pocket books) in Japan, but none had appeared in English so far. That was not surprising: Murakami writes a sort of "light essays" that share the colloquial "talking to myself" style with his novels, but on a level of much less tension, not to say artistry. In fact, his non-fiction is mostly rather trivial. What about this first non-fiction work to be translated?

I am afraid it is not so different from his other light essays. Of course, Murakami remains the pleasant narrator he always is - the kind of guy to whose soliloquies we could listen for hours after meeting him in a bar. Sometimes there are interesting observations, such as the body count of dead dogs and cats when he is running in Greece from Athens to Marathon.

But more often his observations are extremely banal. When overtaken by pretty girls with bouncing ponytails running on the boards of the Charles River in Boston, he ruminates that "new generations overtake the old." He is not running for competition, he says elsewhere, and occasionally losing doesn't matter because “On the highway of life, you can’t always be in the fast lane.” Does anyone want more of such wisdom gems?

If Murakami had written up such banalities as the thoughts of one of his protagonists in his fiction, we would praise him for aptly catching the emptiness of our present time. Unfortunately, these are his own thoughts... this book is like a hole through which he reveals his own emptiness, there is not a deeper thought about writing or running or whatever in the whole book. Or perhaps I should say Murakami reveals his ordinariness: for isn't he trying to be just another, nice simple guy, really one of us?

Murakami started running when he started writing seriously, to keep in good condition. He runs a marathon every year and tries to practice almost daily. Running is a logical sport to take up for a writer, he says, because both running and writing are solitary endeavors. They both require inner motivation and consistent effort. (But as the commentator in the German newspaper Die Zeit points out, constantly running is not the best training for a marathon - interval training gives better results.)

Murakami compares running to writing: also writing, in his view, is something he has to push himself to daily for 4 hours. Consistency, endurance, plodding on. But does that always lead to great literature? Especially in Kafka on the Shore I felt Murakami was pushing himself to keep writing, in order to fill the large framework he had designed, without having much to say. Most of the book is boring - some great parts as the episode of the sardines raining from the sky, excluded. Isn't Murakami basically a writer of short forms who pushes himself too much to write large novels? His early stories are still his best work.

This is not a great book about running. This is not a great book about writing. This is not a book that gives new information about Murakami Haruki (nothing that was not already included in Jay Rubin's Murakami Haruki and the Music of Words), let alone any deeper insights... Perhaps Murakami Haruki should stop being a nice guy. He should stop being an easy and popular author. He should get angry and finally write something great.

[By the way, the title of the book is a riff on a title by Raymond Carver, an author translated by Murakami, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love]

Blades for the kitchen

FXCuisine.com features a beautiful photo essay called "Japanese Bladesmiths." In a unique behind-the-scenes visit of the craftsmen who produce the best (and most expensive) kitchen knives in the world, we are introduced to the work of the forger (hizukuri), who softens the metal by heating and hammers it out into the shape of the blade; the blade-sharpener or honer (hazuke or togi), who sharpens the metal to give it an edge; the handle-maker or hafter (ezuke) who attaches a handle made of rot-resistant magnolia wood to the blade; and finally the engraver. It is interesting to see the division of labor among multiple workshops.

Japanese kitchen knives cost more than a camera, they can't be washed in a machine, are subject to rusting and boy, they are so sharp that if you slip you'll lose a finger or two before you can say banzai. [..] With one of these knives, you could slice fish so thin you could read a whole chapter of La Physiologie du Goût through the slices.

The knives are made in the city of Saikai, just half an hour south of Osaka. To quote from Wikipedia:

The production of knives in Sakai started in the 16th century, when tobacco was introduced to Japan by the Portuguese, and Sakai started to make knives for cutting tobacco. The Sakai knives industry received a major boost from the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868), which granted Sakai a special seal of approval and enhanced its reputation for quality. [...] Making kitchen knives and related products is still a major industry in Sakai, using a combination of modern machinery and traditional hand tools to make stain-resistant carbon steel blades.

Read more technical details about Sakai cutlery on the website of Sakai City.

Professional Japanese chefs own their own set of knives and they sharpen them every day after use. (Here is a NYTimes story about a blade-sharpening experience). Expertise in handling a knife is all-important in Japanese cuisine - after all, the guests only have chopsticks at their disposal, so everything has to be cut in advance. Every knife has been formed for a special use: there are fish knives, vegetable knives, sashimi slicers - and special knifes to filet tuna - , an eel knife, and knives to cut udon or soba. Just watch your fingers!

Via Kottke.org