Nihon Chomiryo Tabi
Start with these 2
Ise udon is eaten with a black sauce clinging to thick, soft noodles. Not a broth but a sauce: little of it, and strongly flavored. It is said to have taken this shape so pilgrims could be fed at once.
Tamari is the core of that sauce. Because it is brewed mainly from soybeans, it is deep in color, with body and a strong umami. It differs from Kanto's koikuchi, which uses a good deal of wheat, and from Kansai's usukuchi, which holds the color back. This is the Tokai line.
- Ise udon, eaten with a sauce rather than a broth
- Tamari: soybean-led, deep in color, strong in umami
Why tamari shoyu from Mie tastes sweet
Shoyu (soy sauce) in Mie means the tamari of Ise. Thick and black, and sweet on the tongue. That sweetness comes not from sugar but from the strength of the umami.
Ordinary koikuchi (the standard dark shoyu) is brewed with soybeans and wheat in roughly equal parts, but tamari is soybean-led and uses only a little wheat. More amino acids form as the soybean protein breaks down, so both umami and color grow deeper. That is also why the viscosity rises.
The black sauce on Ise udon is that tamari combined with sugar or mirin so it coats the noodles quickly. Since it is eaten as a sauce rather than a broth, it needed enough concentration to settle the flavor in a small amount. It runs continuous with the mame miso culture of Aichi, in the same Tokai line, and a flavor skeleton with the soybean in the lead carries all the way through here.
The beginnings of tamari and the black sauce on Ise udon
The origin of tamari shoyu is said to lie in drawing off and using the liquid that seeped to the bottom of the barrel when brewing miso. It is a form close to the ancestor of shoyu, long present in the Tokai region. Brewing centered on Aichi and Mie, and in the temple towns of Ise, tamari was made for the pilgrims.
Kojiya, founded in 1816 on Kamiji-dori at the gates of the Outer Shrine of Ise Jingu, has brewed this tamari for more than 200 years, and has presented it to the Outer Shrine at the shikinen sengu rebuildings. Records also survive of the brewery exhibiting at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
Accounts of how Ise udon began differ, and none is settled. What is generally said is that in the Edo period, in order to feed Ise pilgrims quickly, the form of coating thick, soft noodles in a tamari sauce took hold.
Local dishes and their seasonings
- Ise udon (伊勢うどん)
- Udon boiled thick and soft is coated in a black sauce based on tamari shoyu. With no broth, the concentration and sweetness of the sauce are the flavor outright. It is said to have arisen so that pilgrims could be fed at once.
- Tekone zushi (てこね寿司)
- A fishermen's dish from Shima. Freshly caught bonito is steeped in a shoyu sauce, then mixed by hand with vinegared rice. The name is said to come from preparing it quickly by hand aboard the boat, and the quality of the shoyu in the sauce decides the flavor directly.
- Same no tare (さめのたれ)
- A preserved food handed down in Ise-Shima: shark flesh seasoned with salt or a shoyu marinade and sun-dried. It has a history of being offered at the Kannamesai rite of Ise Jingu, and it still lines the shelves as a local product.
Makers in Mie
- KojiyaFounded in 1816
A brewery that has made tamari shoyu for more than 200 years on Kamiji-dori at the gates of the Outer Shrine of Ise Jingu. It has been presented to the Outer Shrine at the shikinen sengu rebuildings, and it exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. It makes the bottle that serves as the base for the black sauce on Ise udon. - Kuki SangyoFounded in 1886
A specialist sesame oil maker founded in the port town of Yokkaichi, once a collection point for sesame. It has kept making sesame oils to suit different uses for close to 140 years, starting with taihaku sesame oil, pressed without roasting.
Stories from this area
Nearby prefectures
