Eating healthy among the Japanese Alps

June 16, 2010

By T.Torres

On June 1st, I set off on my bicycle from the Pacific coast of Hamamatsu Japan towards the snowy peaks of the Japanese Alps. My travel companions, Lowell and Mark stuffed a week’s supply of clothing into their bicycle panniers and together we rode with the Sea of Japan as our final destination. Besides sightseeing, we would be raising money to help Cambodian families become self-sufficient. Along the way, I had hoped to meet with the people who made the mountainous region of Japan their home. I wished to learn about the way they lived and ate. What did they do to become the second longest living group of Japanese (behind the people of Okinawa)? . Fortunately I did meet some interesting characters during my tour. Among them were a young couple that lived off the land and ate only the organic food they raised themselves. They even made their own soy sauce. We stayed at various Japanese inns. Some nestled among the craggy peaks of the Southern Alps. The food we ate consisted of a locally caught river trout, wild boar and deer. Always tastefully presented and sparsely seasoned, the cuisine of the Japanese mountainous regions glow with the life-healing goodness of the ancient land. The one meal that stood out the most in my mind was served during our first night stay at the Furosato Mura Pension in Tatsuyama village. The pension was operated by a husband and wife team, their young daughter prepared the meals for guests. The meal prepared for dinner looked more like a still life portrait of locally harvested produce. We started with freshly caught Amago trout grilled with salt. The trout was the best tasting fish I had ever eaten. We moved on to a dish of seared venison and roasted duck. Again, the duck and venison were all locally harvested and not gamey in the least.

Amago Trout

Sometime it’s the little side dishes in a Japanese meal that attracts the most attention. A tiny bowl with a few pieces of steamed snow peas topped with a slightly sweet wheat-miso condiment helped offset the duck and venison flavors. I moved on to a small dish of tempura fried vegetables and shrimp before starting on a small “nabe” of chicken, bamboo shoots and negi onions that had been simmering on the table. I saved the bowl of buckwheat noodles (soba) and mushrooms for last. Though the individual dishes were small when compared to what you might find in an American restaurant, by meal’s end I had eaten fish, duck, venison, chicken, pork, shrimp, over 6 kinds of vegetables and three kinds of grains. Most of the food was locally grown and prepared with minimal seasoning. Over the course of our cycling tour, we would encounter many of these food items at various restaurants and inns. In addition, wild boar seems to be a mountain favorite and is usually served in a stew.

Venison & Duck

During our week-long cycling tour, we traveled through four separate prefectures. Most of the trip took place in Nagano prefecture, where the 1998 winter Olympics was held. Nagano residents are known for their longevity. Their diet, though at times heavy on salt, consist of seasonal vegetables, bamboo shoots and wild game. The low fat nature of their diet along with copious amounts of whole grains and miso might explain why there is such a low incidence of heart disease among these mountain people. As I continued my tour across the Japanese Alps, recurring themes of seasonal foods, low fat protein dishes and whole grains helped underscore what I already knew about the Japanese diet; there is a definite method to the madness. Each dish plays a role in the drama of your life. Your body is the stage and if you take a moment to understand the players in this drama, you will become a healthier person for it. After the tour, I returned to my home two kilograms lighter with stronger legs and a determination to increase my whole grain intake and enjoy the bounty that the Japanese mountains promise to deliver this summer.