Seasonings of Hyogo

Why Tatsuno's usukuchi shoyu reads as sweet

In Tatsuno, the home of usukuchi shoyu, there is a long-standing method of adding amazake late in the brewing. The gentle sweetness of amazake, made from rice koji, takes the edge off the salt, and it also keeps the color from deepening any further. The salt content is higher than koikuchi shoyu, yet what you notice first in the mouth is sweetness and umami, and that extra step is said to be the reason.

On top of that come the materials: rice and wheat from the Banshu plain, low-iron soft water from the Ibo River, salt from Ako. In a place where the ingredients all lined up, a shoyu deliberately finished pale took root. Usukuchi is not a weak shoyu but a tool for keeping the color and aroma of what you are cooking. Kansai clear soups and simmered dishes come out looking clear because of this one bottle.

Where usukuchi shoyu began

Usukuchi shoyu is said to have originated in the early Edo period at Tatsuno in Harima Province, today's Tatsuno City. In 1666, a Tatsuno brewer named Magouemon Maruo is credited with working out a shoyu finished pale in color, and Tatsuno has remained the main producing area for usukuchi ever since.

Behind it lay the conditions of the place. Rice and wheat from the Banshu plain, low-iron soft water from the Ibo River, and salt from Ako. The character of the raw materials and the water is thought to be what made both the pale color and the sweet-leaning taste possible. As Kamigata food culture spread out from Kyoto and Osaka, Tatsuno's usukuchi, which leaves the color of the ingredients untouched, established itself as the shoyu you cannot do clear soups or simmered dishes without.

Local dishes and their seasonings

Ikanago no Kugini (いかなごのくぎ煮)

Juvenile sand lance caught in the Seto Inland Sea in spring, simmered down in shoyu, sugar, and ginger. The name comes from the finished pieces looking like old nails. Around Kobe and Akashi, households cook it up and hand it around to neighbors and relatives, a familiar sign of spring.

Akashi-yaki (Tamago-yaki) (明石焼き（玉子焼き）)

A batter heavy on egg and wheat starch is wrapped around octopus, cooked on a copper plate, and dipped in warm dashi to eat. The dashi is usually built on usukuchi shoyu, and no sauce goes on it, which is how it is done where it comes from. The dish carries Kansai's usukuchi culture straight into its seasoning.

Botan Nabe (ぼたん鍋)

A wild boar hot pot in a miso broth, eaten mainly around Tamba Sasayama. The boar is arranged like flower petals and cooked with vegetables in the miso-based broth. It is known as the dish that stands for the hard Tamba winter.

Makers in Hyogo

• Suehiro ShoyuFounded in 1879
  A small brewery in Tatsuno, the birthplace of usukuchi, still practicing tennen jozo (naturally brewed, no temperature control). It uses whole domestic soybeans and domestic wheat, and keeps to a way of brewing that lets the shoyu age slowly at whatever temperature the season brings.
• Rokko Miso SeizoshoFounded in 1918
  A maker that began brewing miso in Nagata, Kobe, and moved to Ashiya after the war. It uses rice from Hyogo Prefecture and black soybeans from Tamba to brew a sweet miso with the beans still in pieces.