How Five Of The Oldest Cooking Traditions Survived Centuries | Still Standing

Business Insider・2 minutes read

Cooking techniques from Greece, India, and Japan explore rare and ancient traditions, like hand-making phyllo dough, barrel-aging soy sauce, and crafting fenny liquor from cashew fruit, each facing challenges but preserving cultural legacies. Iconic artisans like Yorio, Yasuo, and Naomi struggle to maintain traditional methods amidst modernization and external pressures, highlighting the delicate balance between preserving heritage and adapting to changing times.

Insights

  • Yorio's Hatziperascos in Greece continues the ancient tradition of hand-making phyllo dough, a labor-intensive process crucial for Greek dishes like baklava, relying heavily on tourism for sales, facing challenges due to the decline in visitors during the pandemic.
  • Yasuo Yamamoto in Japan preserves the art of traditional soy sauce making through barrel aging, teaching workshops, and global sales, emphasizing the importance of handmade barrels and the fermentation process, ensuring the legacy of barrel-aged soy sauce endures.

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Recent questions

  • How is phyllo dough traditionally made in Greece?

    By mixing flour, water, and salt, flattening, stretching, and shaping.

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Summary

00:00

Ancient Cooking Traditions: Greece, Japan, India

  • Cooking techniques from an 86-year-old dough maker in Greece, a family in India, and a soy sauce artisan in Japan are explored for their rare and ancient traditions.
  • Making phyllo dough by hand can take up to four hours and is used in Greek dishes like baklava, with Yorio's Hatziperascos being one of the few bakers in Greece still making it manually.
  • Yorio's workshop in Crete starts the phyllo dough process with flour, water, and salt mixed in a large mixer, then flattened and stretched before being shaped into discs and tossed repeatedly to achieve thin layers.
  • Despite competition from machine-made phyllo, Yorio's business relies on tourist sales, with kataifi pastry being even more labor-intensive and less profitable.
  • Yorio's business heavily depends on tourism, with a significant drop in visitors in 2020 due to the pandemic, impacting sales and the workshop's importance in the community.
  • In Japan, traditional soy sauce making involves barrel aging, a process that can take up to four years, with Yasuo Yamamoto being one of the few brewers still hand-building his barrels.
  • The wooden barrels used in soy sauce making can last over a century, with Yasuo assembling them with bamboo strips to prevent corrosion from the soy sauce's saltiness.
  • The fermentation process for soy sauce involves mixing crushed wheat and steamed soybeans with Koji fungus in a vat, then transferring the mixture to wooden barrels for a year and a half of fermentation.
  • Yasuo's dedication to traditional soy sauce making includes teaching workshops, selling his product globally, and ensuring the legacy of barrel-aged soy sauce continues.
  • In India, the Gown God family hand makes fenny liquor from cashew fruit using techniques dating back to the 1500s, with the process involving juicing, fermenting, distilling, and aging the liquor in copper drums.

25:18

"25th Generation Shabba Business Faces COVID-19"

  • The Shabba business has survived numerous challenges, including wars and epidemics, for 25 generations, but COVID-19 poses a significant threat.
  • Naomi Hasagawa, the current owner, uses special bamboo for the Mochi, considered sacred and sterilized only by the Okami.
  • She prepares a sweet miso dipping sauce, following a recipe passed down by her aunt, combining today's batch with yesterday's leftovers for enhanced flavor.
  • Naomi uses a machine to make Mochi dough, a departure from the traditional steaming and pounding method, and roasts the Mochi on skewers covered in soybean powder.
  • The snack, Burimuchi, is dipped in Miso sauce and sold for 500 yen, with the price maintained for over 30 years, although the number of skewers has been reduced.
  • The Imamiya Shrine, where Ichuwa serves, was founded in 994 during epidemics, with Naomi being the 25th Okami, making modern improvements while maintaining traditional practices.
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