Mouri Jozo Carp Okonomi Sauce (毛利醸造 カープ お好みソース)

The story behind it

Mouri Jozo has been brewing vinegar in Miyoshi, in northern Hiroshima Prefecture, since 1869. Carp Sauce is the okonomi sauce made by this vinegar brewer.

After the war, food stalls gathered in Hiroshima's Shintenchi Park selling issen yoshoku, the forerunner of okonomiyaki. The thin Worcestershire sauce of the time did not cling to the toppings, so stall owners asked for something thicker. Suppliers each experimented, and Keiichiro Mouri, the company's former chairman, created its predecessor, "Sakuraya Sauce."

It was later renamed "Carp Sauce," after Hiroshima Castle's nickname "Rijo" (Carp Castle) and the lucky image of a carp climbing a waterfall. Its sweetness comes from vegetables rather than artificial sweeteners, and it is brewed with groundwater from the Chugoku Mountains and slowly simmered. It is used by okonomiyaki restaurants in Hiroshima, and in 1993 it took first place (Governor's Award) in the okonomi sauce category of a Hiroshima Prefecture food competition.