Goryo Hamaguchi: Earthquakes, Modern Medicine and Yamasa Soy Sauce

There was a fairly strong earthquake in the Tokyo/Kanto region and along the coast to the south yesterday (May 5th, 2014). It was a holiday in Japan so there wasn’t as much disruption as there would have been on a regular Monday, but it was a reminder that another Big One may come sooner or later. It’s just a fact of life in Japan.

I happened to be re-reading this older article about soy sauce when I heard about the earthquake…which reminded me of someone who is associated with both. His name was Goryo Hamaguchi (????), and he was quite a remarkable man. I thought you might like to hear about him, since he’s barely known at all outside Japan.

Goryo Hamaguchi was born in 1825 in Kishuu, current day Wakayama prefecture, in the waning days of the Edo period. He was the son of one of the relatives of a big soy sauce merchant, which had been in business since 1645. He was subsequently adopted by the merchant to become the heir, and he eventually become the 7th owner and head of the company that eventually became Yamasa Corporation, one of the leading manufacturers of soy sauce to this day. They are still privately owned, making it one of the oldest companies in Japan under the same management in Japan and the world (the current CEO is Michio Hamaguchi, from the same family). That alone is a pretty remarkable thing, even though very old companies are much more common in Japan than in almost any other country. (One of the ways family businesses keep their companies going is to adopt a capable heir, as in Goryo’s case.) But of Goryo was more than just a soy sauce merchant.

Around the end of the 19th century, a popular legend sprung up about an old man, and elder in his village, who saw a huge tide coming in, and burned his freshly cut rice to warn the villages of the coming tsunami. (You can read the legend here). This legend was popularized outside of Japan be the Lafcadio Hearn, who called it a story about a Living God. It’s a tale that emphasizes the importance of warning systems when earthquakes hit, and has been re-told in textbooks and such in Japan.

The legend based on an actual event in Goryo’s life, although a lot of details differ. There was indeed an earthquake and Tsunami in the area where Goryo lived in 1854. He was just 35 then, not an old man, and he didn’t live on a mountain above the village, he lived in town. He did set his rice fields on fire, but they weren’t freshly cut with the rice still on them - they were just straw. But it did serve to warn the people in the area. But what he did after the earthquake was in many ways even better than the warning fires. He spent a lot of his own money - 4665 ryo or gold coins, which was a huge sum at the time (a family of four could live comfortably on 10 ryo a year) to make the area more able to withstand earthquakes and tsunami. One of the things he financed was a big levee. In 1946, 88 years after it was built, another large earthquake hit the area, but the levee was able to hold back the tsunami waves. In his home area, the spirit of Goryo Hamaguchi is honored by a shrine at the levee. (It’s quite common in Shinto for the spirits of great people to be worshipped after life as kind of demi-gods.)

Goryo was a very forward thinking man. He was one of the earliest proponents of opening the country to foreign trade after Commodore Matthew Perry’s fleet arrived, and he really wanted to study abroad for a while, although his request was denied the the Edo shogunate. He was also interested in western medicine, having befriended some prominent Rangaku or western scholars and doctors of the time. He contributed his considerable personal wealth in two areas: cholera prevention, and spreading the use of smallpox vaccinations. He built a hospital and a cholera treatment center in his home town of Choshi, and also backed the building and operations of the Western Smallpox Vaccination Center in Tokyo (now the Tokyo University School of Medicine), headed by Kansai Seki. He even financed the publication of the first full-fledged Western medical reference in Japan.

There’s a fictionalized account of this phase of his life in the great scifi-fantasy-medical drama manga and live-action miniseries Jin (?). In the manga he’s portrayed as a no-nonsense businessman who does not suffer fools lightly, and doesn’t just hand out money because people ask for it, but is willing to back what he sees as progress in medicine even if he doesn’t see any immediate profit from it. If all business leaders were like him, the world would be a much better place…

Goryo Hamaguchi died in 1885 at the age of 66, after an eventful life that included, on top of everything else, stints in both local and notional government in the new Meiji period (he was even a Cabinet minister for a short time). He finally fulfilled his wish to travel to the west, but he passed away in New York of an illness. At least he did manage to travel overseas finally.

So whenever you see a bottle of Yamasa soy sauce, you may want to give a little nod to Goryo Hamaguchi, who used the wealth the soy sauce brought to his family to improve the lives of others. I guess that the fact that Yamasa Corporation is involved in the biochemical industry as well as soy sauce may be his legacy.

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Homemade mochi (pounded rice) the modern way

Every year around this time, I get a yearning for mochi, that bland, sticky dough made by pounding glutionous or sweet rice into a paste. Mochi (or omochi) is traditionally eaten instead of rice during the New Year holidays (which lasts until the 7th in Japan traditionally), since it can be dried into long-keeping cakes that can be reconstituted easily. Although commercial dried mochi cakes are available at any Japanese grocery store and can’t be beat for convenience, freshly made mochi is a very different thing - softer, stickier, with the natural sweetness of the rice coming through.

I have thought off and on about getting a mochi tsuki ki or mochi making machine, for years. These things are available in Japan nowadays for around 10,000 to 15,000 yen. But it would be expensive and heavy to haul one over from Japan, and here in Europe, where rice cookers have only now started to become widely available, mochi machines are not not going to be stocked at my local kitchen-appliance store any time soon. And talk about a single-purpose appliance! A mochi making machine works similarly to a bread machine - in fact, the first bread machines (called “home bakeries” in Japan) were developed based on the kneading action of mochi making machines. But, I don’t own a bread machine either, and I am not that eager to get one. Besides, I am not sure of the motor of an average bread machine is strong enough to deal with the strong stickiness of pounded rice. There are combination bread and mochi making machines available in Japan, but they are either expensive or have mediocre reputations. Plus, there’s that problem of hauling one over from Japan.

I’ve tried making mochi in a food processor - once. That didn’t work out well. The mochi didn’t have time to turn into a sticky, smooth mass before the motor of the food processor overheated. The sticky mass had a tendency to want to climb into the middle of the food processor too.

I even tried making mochi by pounding the grains in a mortar and pestle. That took so long to make a tiny amount, that it wasn’t worth it. And again, it was very hard to get the mochi smooth yet sticky/strong enough for my liking.

Sure, I could make a mochi of sorts from mochiko or rice powder. That yields mochi that is very smooth - but, for me, lacking in body, not to mention that freshly cooked sweet-rice taste. Also mochi dango (see mitarashi dango) have a different texture from fresh mochi. Yes, I’m particular.

So my homemade fresh mochi plans lay dormant for years…until recently, when I finally got a KitchenAid stand mixer. I am not anti-appliance per se, but I tend to really procrastinate a lot about introducing new machinery into my kitchen. I was never sure that I could justify the space a stand mixer would take up - could I not knead dough by hand, mix cookie dough in the food processor, beat eggs with my handheld beater? Besides, here in Europe KitchenAid, the brand I wanted, is way more expensive than they are in the U.S. But a couple of months ago, one of my local electronics stores had the KitchenAid Artisan models on sale. I couldn’t resist. And so, a sexy white model entered my life. Why did I wait so long? I’ve named my KitchenAid Agatha, and when my still-in-development kitchen is finally in place, she will occupy pride of place there.

The beauty of a KitchenAid mixer is its super sturdy motor. You can leave it on to mix and knead for far longer than you can a food processor, and it won’t overheat. This, I sensed, would be the key to making mochi that was sticky and smooth. And so it was. Making fresh mochi is now so easy that I barely have to think about it. It’s easier than kneading bread, almost as easy as mixing up a batch of cookie dough.

Besides a mixer, having a rice cooker will make the whole process even easier. (I always thought that mochi rice had to be steamed, so discovering that it could be made in a rice cooker with no fuss was a revelation too.) If you do, and you have some sweet or glutinous rice on hand, you could have freshly made mochi in 2 hours from now.

This makes enough fresh mochi to feed at least 4 people, if not more.

3 rice-cooker cups sweet or glutinous rice or mochi rice (see Looking At Rice) 3 rice-cooker cups water Toppings of your choice - see below

Equipment suggested: A food/stand mixer such as a KitchenAid with a sturdy motor, a rice cooker, a fine-mesh sieve or colander

Wash the rice a few times (see Japanese rice basics for the method) in several changes of water. Leave to drain for at least half an hour in a sieve or colander.

Put the rice in the bowl of a rice cooker with the 3 cups of water. (Note that the rice to water ratio is 1:1, which differs from the ratio recommended for regular Japonica rice.) Set your rice cooker to cook the rice in one hour, if it has a timer. If it doesn’t have a timer, let the rice soak in the water for about half an hour before switching the cooker on.

When the rice is cooked, put it in the bowl of your mixer while it’s still hot with the dough hook attached. It’s important to start the kneading/beating while the rice is still hot for maximum stickiness and smoothness. Cool grains turn a bit hard.

Keep kneading. I start out at the low speed, switch up to the high speed for a minute or two, then drop it down to mid-speed Most of the kneading is done at mid-speed, with a few bursts of high-speed thrown in.

Here is how it looks about 10 minutes in. It’s already pretty smooth, though there is still some graininess.

After 20 minutes, the mochi is almost totally smooth. At this point the mochi has cooled down quite a bit, and kneading further doesn’t really get rid of the residual slight graininess. But no matter - when you eat it you will barely notice the grains. (I suppose that re-heating the mochi and re-kneading it might work, but it’s not worth the bother for me.)

Wet your clean hands and pull small bits off the mochi mass to make balls. Here are a few mochi balls made from the freshly kneaded mochi. Smooth enough I think!

If you want to keep the mochi for later use, put the mochi dough on a large piece of plastic wrap (just pouring it out stickily from the bowl should work). Wrap the mochi up with the wrap if you want to keep it soft. Alternatively, put the mochi dough on a surface covered with cornstarch or potato starch, cover with a dusting of more of the same, and leave to dry out a bit - a day should do it. Cut it into portions with a sharp knife, and wrap each portion with plastic wrap.

If you want to use fresh mochi in your New Years ozoni or ozouni soup, just drop the soft balls into the soup a couple of minutes before serving, so that they heat through. Don’t cook them longer than that or they will just melt into the soup!

Fresh mochi can also be used to make moffles - just plop the dough onto the waffle iron. When the surface cooks and crisps, the dough won’t stick to the iron.

Alternate way of cooking the rice, if you don’t have a rice cooker: steaming

Steaming mochi rice is the traditional way of cooking it, but it takes a lot longer. After rinsing the rice, put it in a bowl with plenty of water, and leave for several hours or over night. When you’re ready to cook it, drain off the water, line your steamer with a clean piece of cheesecloth or a cotton or linen kitchen towel, and spread the rice on it evenly. Steam the rice for 40 minutes until the grains are cooked through.

I don’t try to make more mochi than will be consumed in one sitting, since it’s really best when it’s fresh. The best way to deal with fresh mochi is to make whatever you plan to mix with the mochi beforehand ready in a bowl or plate, and to dump the mochi balls you pull off the dough mass with wet hands directly onto that.

Here’s one of my favorite ways to eat fresh mochi: with mounds of grated daikon radish and a little soy sauce. The sharp freshness of the daikon radish counteracts the stickiness of the mochi perfectly, and also makes it easier to digest (or so they say).

Here’s my other favorite way: with natto! I chop up some green onion, mix with natto and soy sauce, and drop the mochi balls on that and mix. The sliminess of the natto goes so well with the slimy-stickiness of the mochi.

Here’s my third favorite way to eat fresh mochi: with kinako (roasted soy bean flour) and sugar. The ratio of kinako to sugar is entirely up to you - I prefer a 2:1 kinako to sugar mix, some prefer a 1:1 ratio. Alternatively, try unsweetened kinako and molasses - or if you’re in the UK, black treacle. Either sugar syrup is a good stand in for kuromitsu, which is a syrup made from dark brown unrefined sugar.

You can also mix in things into fresh mochi dough itself. Just add whatever you want to mix in during the final minutes of the kneading process. Some things to try: ground up sesame seed, ground up toasted walnuts or other nuts. A traditional additive to mochi is yomogi, a kind of bitter green wild herb. In Japan you can even get dessicated yomogi powder. The mochi in the kinako mochi photo above has some yomogi powder mixed in.

Finally, here’s a mochi dish you can make with fresh mochi or dried mochi cakes. If using fresh mochi, plop a few balls in a hot non-stick frying pan until it’s dried out and lightly browned on the bottom. If using dried mochi cakes, pop them into a toaster oven or oven and bake/toast until slightly puffy. Take the mochi out of the frying pan if you had them in there, add some butter to the pan with lots of chopped green onion, and toss around for a minute. Add some soy sauce. Pour the butter-onion-sauce over the hot mochi, and top with some shredded nori seaweed. Add more soy sauce if you wish. This is absolutely ruinous to the waistline, and so good.

When I was little, and the whole clan gathered at my grandparents’ house in Saitama for New Years, I remember my Aunt Chieko and Uncle Isao hauling out the usu (large wooden mortar) and kine (wooden hammer-shaped pestle) for mochitsuki - pounding mochi. My uncle would beat down on the rice with the kine, and in between his poundings my aunt, crouched next to the usu, would deftly turn the rice over with her bare hands. If she hesitated or lost the rhythm, her hands could have been crushed by the heavy hammerhead of the kine. But nothing ever went wrong - they worked together in perfect harmony.

Looking back, my aunt and uncle’s mochitsuki concert seems like a reflection of their marriage. Neither of them had an easy life - my aunt was orphaned at a young age and was brought up by relatives, and my uncle had to take over the family business when his older brother bailed. Yet, I never ever saw them fight or even have tension between them, even when I lived with them for a couple of months when I was 16. This was such a refreshing contrast from the constant strife my parents had at home, leading to divorce a couple of years later. I guess it helped that my uncle was a man of few words, who let my strong-willed, hard working and always upbeat aunt run the household as she wished. And she did just that, especially after my grandparents passed away.

This New Year will be the first one they will be apart in decades, since Uncle Isao passed away this earlier this year. I rather like to think of him sitting wherever he now, relaxing in his long underwear, with a haramaki (knitted tummy warmer) around his middle, chuckling quietly while sipping on a cool beer.

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