Chefs in Tokyo’s Marunouchi business district have developed “the ultimate canned foods” using ingredients from the disaster-stricken Sanriku region in northeastern Japan.
Chefs in Tokyo’s Marunouchi business district have developed “the ultimate canned foods” using ingredients from the disaster-stricken Sanriku region in northeastern Japan.
The canned food is produced in the cities of Ishinomaki and Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, both of which were hit hard by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
The cans will be used as emergency reserves for Marunouchi companies or for outside sales, with the goal of supporting reconstruction of the disaster zone.
Canneries in the two cities lost their sales channels after their distributors and retailers went bankrupt, among other factors. Three years after the quake, their operations still have not recovered.
Hearing about the canneries’ problems, Mitsubishi Estate Co. asked chefs who run restaurants in the Marunouchi district to design canned food.
French chef Kiyomi Mikuni, 59, and Japanese chef Takatsugu Sasaoka, 52, have repeatedly visited the Tohoku region since October last year and completed two types of canned food.
Mikuni supervised the creation of “stewed saury, shark fin and Oshima yuzu simmered in miso” while Sasaoka oversaw “bowl of prickly-ash aroma Kinka mackerel and blue mussel with ample vegetables.”
Mikuni, who served as Kesennuma’s goodwill ambassador, went through more than 10 trial recipes.
“People often eat canned food during a disaster, so I want to make something that elicits a shout of glee when the can is opened,” he said.
After grilling the saury, bones included, on a burner, Mikuni stewed the fish and then produced a powerful aroma with Kesennuma yuzu fruit he softened using a French technique.
Many people at evacuation shelters after the 2011 disaster said they wanted to eat something succulent, so Mikuni made his creation soupier than usual.
Of the 24,000 cans produced, 16,000 are stockpiled for disasters.
Since March 6, 8,000 cans have been put on sale for 450 yen ($4.40) a piece at the Marunouchi Building outside Tokyo Station and elsewhere.