As I mentioned in the first part of this article back in December, Japanese food isn’t just about the sushi.Or the fugu.
There’s a whole lot more, starting with the biggest meal of all – that consumed by… the sumo.
Chewing the Fat
Sumo is one of Japan’s more internationally famous sports, probably because the spectacle of two exceptionally plump men – in a nation of exceptionally skinny people – wrestling one another, clad only in loin-cloths is, well, fascinating.
Sumo wrestlers would be nothing without their diet, though we do dangle the word “diet” here in an ironic sense.
Chanko-nabe is the food of the sumo. It’s a huge, simmering hot-pot that is chock-full of meat, fish and vegetables, best mixed with soy sauce, but sometimes also blended with mirin, miso, sake, and dashi stock (shavings of dried skipjack tuna mixed with edible kelp).
Leftover broth is often then consumed with a hefty plate of noodles.
It’s as highly nutritious in protein as it is gut busting, and is the principle dish gorged by sumo wrestlers to extend their hefty waistlines and add to already-impressive girths.
Some wrestlers enjoy the concoction so much that they quit the ring and instead become the chanko-cho, or chief chanko chef, for their wrestling stables, and eventually open their own restaurants – often with sumo memorabilia from their workhorse days adorning the walls.
To my blinkered eyes at least there’s no finer chanko-nabe to be had in Ryogoku, than at a fine establishment called Yoshiba.
The building that houses Yoshiba (see photo above) was erected in 1948 as a prominent sumo wrestling club and practice stadium for the famous, 200-year-old Miyagino stable, and nine years later the premises were handed down to the stable’s coach, former distinguished yokuzuna (sumo grand champion) Yoshibayama, who passed away in 1977.
After that, the building was recast as a restaurant (in 1983), maintaining the sumo ring and the practice rooms in their original state.
Kappo Yoshiba, named after the aforementioned yokuzuna, is hardly a small place itself. The restaurant can seat up to 250 people, it boasts a sushi bar and a voluminous fish-tank, and while the place is invariably busy, the service from the staff is brilliant – so much so, it leaves you despondent that the custom of tipping is a foreign one in Japan.
There’s also daily entertainment in the sumo ring in the center of the restaurant, which veers from guys in yukata (summer robes) singing traditional sumo songs, to a group of rowdy musicians strumming away on a shamisen in a more quirky, contemporary style.
But the focus here, of course, is the chanko-nabe, and the seriously skewed attempts to finish this herculean dish. Give yourself a day or two to recover – and try not to remember that sumo champions and their lesser ilk guzzle gallons of the chunky nectar on a daily basis.
Too Many Cooks
While not quite sumo wrestlers, DJ/producer Jin Hiyama and his brother Go, also a respected techno-house producer in Tokyo, love raw horse sashimi.
“Basashi is my favorite food,” Jin says. “We love it.” When it comes to other local delicacies like inago (locusts) and hachinoko (bee larvae) however, he draws back. “The Hiyamas don’t eat insects.”
Syuji Wada, better known as DJ Wada and a former member of techno act Co-Fusion, says that while he’s hardly a veteran, he’s tried basashi (raw horse) and shirako (male genitalia of fish) – once or twice.
"I had basashi in Kumamoto and it was delicious,” he relates. “I also ate shirako in Sapporo, but the taste wasn’t so strong. It was more like vinegar.”
Fellow electronic musician Lili Hirakawa begs to differ.
“I love shirako. It’s kind of a common dish, easily found at old izakayas,” she says. “I order it every time. It’s fluffy, creamy and very soft... I can't find any difference between toasted shirako and toasted marshmallows.” She does, however, draw a culinary line with hachinoko and inago. “No way! They’re bugs! I had ant soup in another Asian country – that was the first and last time, I hope.”
Kaz Haruna, who works with the International Division of renowned anime studio Gonzo, laughs at the thought of such refined foodstuffs as inago, shirako and hachinoko.
“After all these years I haven’t tried any of them, which is strange – but perhaps not so strange, given the raw materials of these fine dishes…”
