Seasonings of Tokyo

Tokyo's seasonings came out of Edo commerce, not farmland

Most of Tokyo's seasonings came from a city of merchants rather than a production region. Shops dealing in katsuobushi lined Nihonbashi, and dashi culture spread out from there. In Asakusa there is shichimi, which grew out of a medicinal herb dealer at Yagenbori.

What both share is the idea of gathering products from the provinces and reworking them to suit the Edo palate. Katsuobushi came from Tosa and Satsuma, chili and sansho from all over. The blending done in these shops is what supported the strong seasoning of Edo cooking. On Izu Oshima, salt is made from seawater, so salt too counts among the prefecture's products.

Shichimi togarashi began as medicine

Yagenbori started in 1625, when Nakajima Tokuemon opened a medicinal herb shop at Yagenboribata in Edo (around present-day Higashi-Nihonbashi, Chuo Ward). The following year, drawing on Chinese herbal knowledge, he devised a seven-color chili blend. The story goes that he presented it to the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu at a banquet in the castle, Iemitsu took to it, and he was granted use of the character for toku.

So shichimi was made as medicine before it was ever a kitchen condiment. Together with Yawataya Isogoro at the gates of Zenkoji in Nagano and Shichimiya on the approach to Kiyomizudera in Kyoto, it is counted as one of Japan's three great shichimi. Yagenbori still sells by weight in Asakusa, adjusting the blend to each customer's taste.

Local dishes and their seasonings

Edomae soba tsuyu (江戸前の蕎麦つゆ)

A strong dipping sauce made with koikuchi (the standard dark shoyu), mirin and katsuobushi dashi. The custom of dipping only the tip of the noodles rather than the whole mouthful assumes a sauce this concentrated.

Fukagawa meshi (深川めし)

Clams simmered in miso or shoyu, then either poured over rice with the broth or cooked together with it. It began as fishermen's food, and it works on nothing more than the liquor from the shellfish and shoyu.

Makers in Tokyo

• Yagenbori Nakajima ShotenFounded in 1625
  A shichimi togarashi shop in Asakusa. It began as a medicinal herb dealer, and staff still adjust the blend at the counter as they sell.
• Ninben
  A katsuobushi shop in Nihonbashi. Working outward from dashi, it also makes seasonings such as shiro dashi.
• Umi no Sei
  Makes salt from seawater on Izu Oshima. Its salt retains its nigari.