Prof. Eric Rath weighs in on Japan's food history involving one of our favorite foods: 🧀!
CHIYO SHIBATA STANDS IN A small concert venue, her signature white towel tied around her head. Behind her is a group of taiko drummers and in front of her is a small table with a burner, milk, and salt. As the drumming begins, she takes a deep breath and begins to make cheese.
This is not her usual workshop. “One of my goals is to introduce Japan through cheese,” Shibata says, as we settle at the counter of the 120-year-old building that is Fromage Sen, her cheesery. Only 90 minutes by train and car from Tokyo Station, here in the mountainous center of Chiba Prefecture, rivers tumble and curve past villages and farms. For Shibata and her community of cheesemaking microbes, it is home and where she brings what she considers a distinctly Japanese cheese to life. “When a friend showed me this house with its traditional tile roof, it reminded me of a sake brewery,” she says, gesturing to the natural wood walls. “It was ideal.”