Hiroko’s Food Tours - Asakusa Contents as of July 2015 Hiroko’s Food Tours of Asakusa How to Use this Guide Hiroko’s Food Tours (HFT) is a personal guided food tour in English or Japanese for people who love food. The contact details of the guide, Hiroko, are at the end of this guide. There are other food tours available, but this one of Asakusa is a free sample brochure. You could use the information here to guide yourself. Detailed shop information is in the appendix, and shop access information is provided in another file. If you do self-guided tour by yourself, some of the samples are not available. However, by joining the tour in person, you can learn a lot more, and in addition, you can eat samples at every shop, market and place described here. You may need to have a very hungry appetite. Depending on your budget and time, a personalized tour can be arranged. Kaminari-mon gate (Thunder gate) The symbol of Asakusa: Thunder gate Thank you for joining my food tour in Asakusa. We will start today’s tour from “Kaminari-mon” Gate. This is the official gate of Senso-ji Temple, which we will soon make a short visit around. Kaminari-mon Gate wouldn’t be so symbolic as it is today without such a huge, red paper lantern hanging under its roof. The lantern is 3.9 meters high and 3.3 meters in diameter, and its weight is about 700 kilograms. Thunder gate depicted in the The original location of Kaminari-mon Gate was Komagata, a place about 500 woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige meters towards Sumida-gawa River from here, the current location. The gate was built there in 941 A.D. during the Heian period (794 - 1185). A military commander, Taira no Kinmasa, donated a gate to Senso-ji Temple to show his gratitude when his prayer was answered. During the Kamakura period (1192 - 1333), the gate was moved to the place it is today, and at that time, the statues of the wind god (Fujin) and the thunder god (Raijin) were first enshrined. Talking about the huge lantern of the Kaminari-mon Gate, its origin is not known, but it appeared in the ukiyoe woodblock prints by (Utagawa Hiroshige) during the Edo period (1603 - 1867). However, the wooden Kaminari-mom Gate was burnt down once every hundred years during the Edo period. After the fire occurred in 1865, the gate was not reconstructed until 1960. A Japanese businessman, Matsushita Konosuke, contributed this current gate with a large lantern as a token of gratitude when he recovered from an illness by making a prayer to Senso-ji Temple. Not to repeat the fire anymore, the current gate was build using reinforced-concrete. The large lantern has been renovated once every ten years, and the current one was made in 2013. - 1 - Hiroko’s Food Tours - Asakusa Contents as of July 2015 Nakamise-dori Street: One of the oldest shopping malls in Japan Senso-ji Temple has a quite long history, which was begun in 628 A.D. (Imperial Year: Year 36 of the reign of Empress Suiko) when fishermen found Kannon, the goddess of mercy, in their net while fishing on Sumida-gawa River. Having received the statue of Kannon, their boss became a priest and enshrined it in his residence converting it into a temple. As the oldest temple in Asakusa, it had been believed by the Samurai and Shogans, and became a large temple. Thunder gate depicted in the woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige In 1685 A.D. (Imperial Year Jyokyo 2), Senso-ji Temple permitted its neighbors to open shops on the approach to the temple in return that they cleaned the precincts periodically. This is the predecessor of present-day Nakamise-dori Street, one of the oldest shopping malls in Japan. The Edo period (1603 - 1867) was the time when the ordinary people in Edo city gained power, and Senso-ji Temple and Nakamise-dori Street in Asakusa was developed as the center of the culture for them. The atmosphere of Nakamise-dori Street, always jammed with people (even more on the festivals and fairs), was created at that time. On the way up to now after the Edo period, Asakusa had gone through the Nakamise-dori street change of administration from Tokugawa shogunate to the Meiji government, the Great Kanto Earthquake, and the Second World War. Current Namamise-dori Street was reconstructed right after the Second World War, and it has been given several renovations since then. Now, this street is about 250 meters long from Kaminari-mon Gate to Hozo-mon Gate (the final gate to the main temple), and there are 54 stores on the east side; 35 stores on the west side of the street, welcoming pilgrims and tourists with their specialties. Food tour: There are quite a lot of shops which deal with food even only on Nakamise-dori Street: shops which are specialized in a single type of food, and shops which have a wide variety of food. An interesting thing is that some of them have some branches throughout the Asakusa area. So, on this street, for the tour I will choose the shops which seem to be better to drop in as we walk along Nakamise-dori Street. The first shop is at the edge of this street. It deals with the most representative sweet which has been the must-buy-food in Asakusa since the Edo period, Tokiwado. - 2 - Hiroko’s Food Tours - Asakusa Contents as of July 2015 Tokiwado: A popular sweet as a souvenir of Asakusa among Japanese people since the Edo period Kaminari-okoshi: rice puff coated with candy “Kaminari-okoshi” is the name of the sweet, which Tokiwado deals in as its specialty. The name “kaminari” on its top derives from a story that there used to be a shop which sold this sweet in front of Kaminari-mon Gate. The name “okoshi” is a name for this type of sweet, and it has a good meaning to make something such as a business and a family prosperous. The main ingredient for “kaminari-okoshi” is steamed, dried, and grained non-glutinous rice. The granular rice is roasted to make it a puff-like food. By heating, the texture of rice changes dramatically like popcorn. The puffy rice is mixed with heated sugar and starch syrup. The mixture is then stretched into a board-like shape. When cooled, the board of “kaminari-okoshi” is cut into bite-size blocks. This sweet was already sold at a street stall in front of Kaminari-mon Gate in 1795 A.D. (Imperial Year Kansei 7) in Asakusa, and it was a popular souvenir of Edo. Tokiwado Tokiwado, is said to have its roots in the early stages of the “kaminari-okoshi” shop. It started its business at the current place, just next to Kaminari-mon Gate Plaza, in 1892 A.D. (Imperial Year Meiji 25). Since then, the variety of “kaminari-okoshi” offered by Tokiwado has been increased in order to catch up with the changing preferences of people. Tokiwado now has over 50 varieties of “kaminari-okoshi” to attract every people. The most standard types are the ones coated with white sugar or brown sugar. They have a cooking class of making kaminari-okoshi (from 2 people; for about 30-60 mins; ¥2,000 per person). (Tokiwado: http://tokiwado.tokyo/) Bairindo: established in 1876 A.D. (Imperial Year Meiji 9) Variety of bean and nut snacks - one of the traditional and casual snacks for any occasion Bairindo Snacks made using beans and nuts are one of the favorite daily foods among Japanese people. The simplest one might be roasted soy-beans, and it is an indispensable food for a bean-scattering ceremony which is held on the 3rd of February in Japan. Roasted peanuts with or without shells are also popular. Fried broad-beans, roasted green-peas coated with salty powder, and peanuts coated with many different flavors are standard items. They are a good accompany while having a cup of tea or drinking alcohol. - 3 - Hiroko’s Food Tours - Asakusa Contents as of July 2015 Nowadays, most of Japanese people buy bean and nut snacks from a section in a super market. But, traditionally, people bought them at a shop which specialized in beans and nuts. Bairindo was established in 1876 A.D., and it is one of the oldest shops in Asakusa. It still keeps a traditional way to sell bean and nut products. It has a wide selection: roasted beans, fried beans, and glazed nuts. Some of them are already packed, but some of them in the show case are sold by weight. Kameya: doll-shape cakes and rice crackers Traditional, quality rice crackers Kameya Many people would stop to see closely what those things are in the showcase over there. This is a shop which deals with both doll-shape cakes and rice crackers. Their doll cakes are nice, but here I would like to introduce their rice crackers as they have got such an attractive display of the very standard and traditional type of rice crackers. Rice crackers are popular snack, which Japanese people eat while having a cup of green tea at home. Since the exact definition of rice cracker is a bit complicated, so this time I say that there are roughly two types of rice cracker; one is made from non-glutinous rice, and the other is made from glutinous rice. Here at Kameya, I will focus on the former ones.