CLAM "JAM." Yoshihiro Kobayashi prepares tsukudani, a Japanese preserved food — invented long before the advent of modern refrigeration, dating back to the samurai Edo Era more than 200 years ago — in Tsukuda, Tokyo. Kobayashi says the closest equivalent of tsukudani in the west is jam. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)

From The Asian Reporter, V35, #8 (August 4, 2025), page 5.

By Yuri Kageyama

The Associated Press

TOKYO — Their morning starts at 5:00am.

The father and son don’t speak to each other. They don’t need to. They barely look at each other as they go briskly, almost mechanically, from task to task. Beads of sweat glisten on their foreheads.

It’s the same work they’ve been doing at their shop for years: Cooking in big metal pots the ancient Japanese food tsukudani.

It’s preserved food invented long before the advent of modern refrigeration, dating back to the samurai Edo Era more than 200 years ago.

Pieces of tuna, tiny shrimp, seaweed, and other ingredients get simmered in a sweet syrup of soy sauce, saké, and sugar. The air in the shop becomes damp, pungent, sweet.

Today, it’s clam tsukudani: Two pots from 6:00am to 7:00am, and two more from 7:00am to 8:00am. They’ll cook other items in the afternoon, depending on the orders that come in from restaurants and stores.

They can’t stir what’s cooking much. The tiny pieces are fragile and will break.

"My father is very old school," Yoshihiro Kobayashi says with a mix of exasperation and resignation in his voice. Somewhere hidden behind his matter-of-fact tone is his deep love and respect for what he has inherited.

Working first at a fashion brand, then a department store, the younger Kobayashi initially had no plans to take up his father’s work. But he later made up his mind to return.

He says his father is strict and opinionated, yet today Nobuo Kobayashi leaves all the talking to his son, laughing when this reporter aims the camera at him, "Don’t take me. Your camera might break."

Tsukushin, the Kobayashis’ factory-turned-shop, is tucked away in a corner of a quaint humble Tsukuda neighborhood by the Sumida River in downtown Tokyo. It’s where tsukudani was born — the dish’s name fittingly translates to "cooked in Tsukuda."

"The original," "founding," "first and foremost" read big wooden signs hanging by the roofs of the rickety tsukudani stores.

These days, tsukudani is standard Japanese fare, often mass-produced at modern factories far away from the dish’s birthplace.

At Kobayashi’s shop, tsukudani gets cooked in vats over earthen vessels called "kamados" that were fired up with wood and charcoal in the olden days, but these days use gas. It’s then placed in a large, wooden "handai" serving plate — just the way the ancestors did it. It’s a painstaking procedure requiring about an hour of steady simmering, and the amount that can be produced at one time is limited.

Yoshihiro Kobayashi says the closest equivalent in the west is jam.

Tsukudani is a prime example of how Japan, despite its high-tech modernity and an economy driven by global corporates like Toyota and Sony, maintains traditions passed down over generations, much of them through small businesses.

Although the basic way to eat tsukudani is with a bowl of hot rice, often served with miso or soybean paste soup, it also makes a good snack with saké. Tsukudani can also be used as filling for rice balls or as an easy side dish for "bento," or packed lunch, and it makes for a good topping on "chazuke," which is rice with hot green tea poured over it.

Overall, rice is tsukudani’s best pairing. Tsukudani ice cream or tsukudani potato chip isn’t the direction to go, Kobayashi explained. If it’s not eaten the right way, it won’t taste good, he said.

The novelty comes with communicating that basic message to people — foreigners and younger Japanese alike — who might not even know what tsukudani is.

Noriko Kobayashi, who is not related to the tsukudani makers, runs a tiny store in Tokyo that sells artwork, wooden figures, patterned clothing, and other knickknacks from Africa, Scandinavia, and other faraway places. She said she likes to eat seaweed tsukudani with cheese, while sipping on saké, usually for dinner.

"It’s nothing special," she said, noting she’s been eating it since childhood.

Now that she’s older, she appreciates the way it aids one’s intestines.

"It’s a kind of health food," she said.

* * *

SWEET SIDE. The typical way to eat tsukudani is with a bowl of hot rice. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)

Chopped tuna and sliced ginger simmer in a sauce consisting of soy sauce, mirin, saké, sugar, and salt to make tsukudani, a sweet, Japanese side dish often served with hot rice. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)

From The Asian Reporter, V35, #8 (August 4, 2025), page 13.

By Yuri Kageyama

The Associated Press

TOKYO — Tsukudani, a sweet, Japanese side dish often served with hot rice, originated in the samurai era in a tiny neighborhood called Tsukuda in the old part of Tokyo. Adding "ni" at the end of a word in Japanese means that’s where it’s cooked.

Professional tsukudani is sold packaged at some Asian food stores and, of course, in modern-day Tsukuda.

A Tokyo correspondent for The Associated Press is sharing her basic tsukudani recipe.

Tsukudani involves simmering bite-sized bits of meat or vegetables in a dark, sweet sauce in a pot over low heat. The ideal flavor emerges after about an hour, enough time for all the juice to infuse the food. And be sure to keep watching your pot.

Serve tsukudani with hot rice or saké, or use it as filling for rice balls.

* * *

Start to finish: One hour

Servings: 5

½ cup of clams, tuna, seaweed, shrimp meat, or other food item to make into tsukudani

¼ cup sliced ginger

2 tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon mirin, or sweet rice wine

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon saké, or rice wine

2 teaspoons roasted sesame seeds

Chop the clams, tuna, seaweed, shrimp, or meat into small pieces about the size of a pea. Slice the ginger into thin pieces. Pour the ingredients into a large pot and cook over low heat for about an hour until the juice disappears. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

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