Japanology Plus

Ishiri: a fish sauce made from
fermented squid intestines.

It's produced in the Noto region,

where the local cuisine features
its strong umami flavor.

Today, we'll meet a chef who
incorporates ishiri into Italian cuisine.

Benjamin Flatt, from Australia.

He and his wife, Chikako,
run a guest house in Noto.

His food attracts a lot of visitors.

Weekend bookings fill up
three months in advance.

His cooking is always evolving.
It's delicious.

Flatt's ishiri is homemade,

using a unique Noto method that's
been passed down through generations.

We'll talk to him about his
efforts to share local culture

and fermented delicacies with the world.

Hello and welcome to Japanology Plus.
I'm Peter Barakan.

Today we present one of
our Japanophile profiles.

I'm about an hour's flight north
of Tokyo in the Noto Peninsula,

which juts out into the Sea of Japan.

Japan's summers are hot and humid,

and this area particularly is
known for its high humidity,

which is also conducive to fermentation.

My guest today is an Australian
chef called Benjamin Flatt

who uses ishiri in Italian food.

This has got to be interesting.

Hello.

- Hi! How are you?
- Hi! Nice to meet you.

- I'm Ben.
- I'm Peter.

Welcome to Flatt's.

The stones, the garden, the building.

Everything is absolutely
picture-perfect Japan.

Yeah. It's...originally was
built by my father and I.

- Really? You built this place?
- Yeah.

My father...his job before he was
a guest house owner was electrician.

So he did all electrical work.
I did all the painting.

Okay. Over the space of how many years?

It's about 27 years.

So that's why it's like...it started
to now become its own thing. Yeah.

- Okay. Beautiful.
- Yeah.

- So please. Come in.
- Yes. Thank you.

This is Flatt's guest house.

The biggest selling point
is his original Italian cuisine,

made using local ingredients
and served to just four groups each day.

- Oh, and this is the dining room.
- Yes.

Looking out onto the sea.

Wow. That's beautiful.

Yeah, it has a fantastic sea view.

This is Toyama Bay.

So this is basically looking into...
into Toyama Bay.

Okay.

And so yeah, we're about halfway
up the peninsula in Noto. Yeah.

So it's quite pretty.

And then usually on a clear day,
you'll see all of Tateyama Renpo.

- But it's...
- Oh, the mountains. Oh, right.

- You can't see the mountains.
- Right.

This dining room,
with its spectacular ocean view,

is where customers
enjoy the taste of ishiri.

Ishiri is made by fermenting
salted squid intestines.

More squid is caught in this town
than almost anywhere else in Japan.

In winter, the local custom is
to ferment the intestines.

The resulting fish sauce
is a rare ingredient,

made only here in the Noto region.

It's quite strong.

It's about two times more
umami than soy sauce.

Peter Barakan tastes the
homemade ishiri for himself.

He tries a tiny amount, on a small spoon.

How is it?

Oh okay,

that's...it's very salty.

But...interesting because
the first reaction is salty,

but in fact it's not that salty...
the aftertaste is not, anyway.

No, no.

So it's sort of got...
its back flavor in its build,

and it keeps building in your mouth, yeah.

- That's true. Yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.

That's the, like, the umami just
building up in your mouth.

And making your saliva work,
and making it more and more stronger.

I don't know if I necessarily
would have known

that it was squid if you hadn't said.

No, it's not...if you smell it,
it doesn't smell like fish either.

It smells more like a...a fermented smell.

Yeah. It's more like a kind
of soy sauce-y smell.

But, yeah.

Lick the rest of the spoon.

That's a good sign.

So what are you going to show me now?

So we're going to the ishiri shack.

Ishiri shack.

That sounds really good.

It's where things ferment.

It's just a lock.

So we yearly ferment.

This one's this year's. So it's just
been...beginning of this year.

Okay.

So it's...it basically hasn't
changed much. It's...

Oh.

So what happens is you don't mix it.

You just mix it at the beginning,
then you leave it.

And what happens is that it forms a cap,

and that cap stops oxygen from...

because the worst thing for
any fermentation is oxygen.

Ah.

It's not the actual oxygen
that's the problem.

It's what's floating in it will
make bad bacterias, yeah.

So when you make a fermentation,

you don't want it to be
getting the oxygen into it.

So, so it'll be this cap will be roughly
about this height

from here to here... is this cap.

And then underneath that is the ishiri.

And then it slowly as it gets...
this one's 2020, so...

- That's three years.
- Three years' fermentation.

The cap is still there.
The cap stays there.

You don't do anything with the cap,
you don't touch it.

You still don't mix it.

OK. So pretty soon that's
going to be ready to go.

You can actually eat it after one year.

Mmm.

Most people usually
decanter after one year,

but we find that it's still got quite
a lot of like a...residual...

the salt hasn't mixed into it enough.

Mmm.

So we tried it at two years
and we still had that same feeling.

Three years...flavor gets
this roundness to it.

It's actually stops from being salt
and the ishiri being ishiri...

it's all one.

Aha.

This is the environment.

OK.

It can't be done anywhere
else except for Noto.

The climate here is perfect
for making fermentation.

That's the degree of humidity.

- Degree of humidity...
- And the temperature as well.

The temperature changing.

So from cold to hot,
then back down to cold again.

This gives the fermentation time to...
to ferment strongly

and then rest and then re-ferment again.

You can't...you don't get
that anywhere else.

And also the humidity as well.

So all these things, stop...
make it perfect for, for fermenting this.

And all the fermentations
they do in Noto...

you can't reproduce them
anywhere else than Noto.

Benjamin Flatt was born in 1965,

in the state of New South Wales,
Australia.

His parents were both chefs,

and from a young age,
he helped in the family restaurant.

Flatt went on to be head chef at
an Italian restaurant in Sydney.

He met and fell in love with Chikako

when she was on a working
holiday in Australia.

So, Peter, this is Chikako, my partner.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

- And the two of you met in Australia?
- Yes.

So how did you guys meet up?

I was home-staying...Ben's father's house.

Oh, okay. Okay.

And the first day she came,
it was my brother's birthday party.

Birthday party.

Huh.

And so everybody was there.

We didn't actually all live there.
We lived all in different parts of Sydney.

Benjamin Flatt first came to Japan
in 1996, at the age of 30.

He met Chikako's parents, who
themselves ran a guest house in Noto.

How was it meeting Chikako-san's
parents for the first time?

Ben sort of proposed second
day arrive to Noto.

So I had to translate
his propose to my parents.

You had to ask your parents'
permission to marry...

And that was the second day
after arriving here?

Yeah.

Oh, I see. Okay.

And so Chikako had to sit and...
translate me talking to Oto-san about

Okay. How did that work out?

Ben said, “I want to marry your daughter.”

And I said that in Japanese,
and he said, “No.”

So I said in English, “No.”

And how did you take that?

Well, I just said, we're asking politely,

but we're going to do it anyway,
sort of thing, so we did it anyway so...

When I first got to this part of Japan,

it was...when you walked down the street,

people were still calling out,
“American, American!”

You know, little kids would run up
and grab you by the hand and stuff,

and call you American, yeah?

Right.

And it was very conservative, yeah?

And people like Chikako's father,

of course, he's a rural
conservative man, yeah?

So he can't see that
it's going to ever work.

You're going to have to fit
into not only like...some...

you're just going to have to
change every mannerism of your life

to get...to fit into Japanese life.

And if you can't do that,
you're not going to fit in to here.

And especially back then,
it just wouldn't work.

Right.

I had to commit not only
to getting married,

but I had to commit to moving in,
and being part of a Japanese family.

And doing everything in a Japanese
family that a normal son-in-law would do.

Instead of just moving in and saying,

“Okay, I'm Australian, living in...
overseas, I can do whatever I want,”

and I don't have to
do any traditional things,

I can just do whatever I want.

I had to do everything traditional.

Everything, follow all rules.

Learn all the rules,
which was the first thing.

Right.

I mean, there's a lot of them.

And just the basic manners and mannerisms
and all those type of things

had to be learned.

And then at the same stage of that

I was working day in and nights

working with Chikako's parents
at night time in the kitchen,

and then working building
on this building site.

Right.

Building this house.

Which, in...some of the funny things
happened, were like, you know,

the not understanding that
there's dialects of Japanese.

So I've got all these dictionaries
and looking up words,

but people are calling
out to me to do things

and I'm trying to work out
what they're saying to me.

- And it's not in the dictionary.
- And it's not in any dictionary!

So I keep buying more expensive,
bigger dictionaries

thinking it'll be in it.

Chikako's father, Toshihiro,

is a former chef
who specialized in local cuisine.

His mastery of ishiri was officially
recognized by the prefectural government.

My father is actually...
he's got...master of ishiri.

OK.

So they got a lot of passion

to protect tradition
and fermentation culture here.

Okay.

I mean, the passion of...of this family

for keeping tradition together
has been passed on.

And even though it's not mine,
it's not my tradition,

I believe strongly in...
in keeping the tradition alive.

Because I think it's very important
for identification

for the people of this area.

So did you start learning about the ishiri
business pretty much straight away?

Pretty much.

We...I moved in and I was living
and working in the family.

So we did everything.

Family did everything.

Like we didn't do anything not together.

So if Oto-san was making ishiri that day,

we would go off and we'd do
preparation for doing that.

We would spend...after all
the customers had finished,

we'd make a hundred of those a night
before we went to bed. We'd make these.

So I had to change every...like,
you just didn't stop and just go,

“OK, I finished work,
I'm going to go and...”

Okay, so work-life balance
wasn't in your vocabulary?

No, no, the life balance was like...
when I asked, “Can I have a day off?”

My father-in-law sort of said,
“A day off in life?”

And I was like,
“Yeah, normally we have a day off.”

So originally her father told you

no, you can't get married, and then
you said you were going to anyway.

How long did it take for him
to actually come around?

Because he got only 3 months visa.

Oh, ok.

So we had to sort of prove we are serious.

Then two months later,
he gave you a knife.

Yeah, he gave me two knives actually.

Two knives for present.

To work in the kitchen.
So Japanese knives, yeah.

So I was using Western knives.

Okay.

And then by that stage,

Oto-san had already been showing me
quite a lot of ways to do all the sashimi

and cut all the fish up
and stuff like that.

But I'm left-handed so I couldn't
use all the right-handed knives,

because the left-handed...
Japanese knives are...

Oh that's right!

The blade has to be opposite
for left- or right-handed.

That's right. I'd forgotten about that.
Yeah, yeah.

So a Western knife anyone can use,
because it's...

- Double-sided.
- Double sided.

So somebody giving a knife means...

Recognizing...

Recognizing that you're helping,

and you're doing a good job and you're
going to be here a long, for the long...

Yeah so you're staying,
and you're sort of...

So he's not actually saying it verbally,
but he's showing by giving the knife.

Yeah.

In 2011,
Chikako's father Toshihiro retired.

He entrusted the ishiri-making
and guest house business

to his daughter and son-in-law.

Flatt uses the traditional
ishiri method he inherited

to flavor a new style
of cuisine: “Noto Italian.”

So you have this quintessentially
Japanese...and not only Japanese,

but “Noto-an” sauce, and you're
using it to flavor Italian food.

That's unique, I would imagine.

It's unique now,

but in Italian food originally, there's
two different types of fish sauces.

One's called colatura,
and the other one's garum.

And colatura.

Hmm.

And they were...in the Roman era.

The Roman era...they were using
that throughout the whole of Italy.

Oh right.

And they were flavoring food with it.

And that was made with sardines...
and fermented sardines.

So the...the food changed....

I, I'm not quite sure about the whole...

where the revolution changed,
and where they stopped.

But it looks like when the tomatoes
were introduced into...

into Italian cuisine,

because they got enough umami from it,

they stopped using...and because
fish sauce was probably quite pungent

and take a long time to make,
a lot of the places stopped using.

So there's only one actual
town in Italy these days

that makes the colatura and then
the rest don't use it anymore.

So traditionally it's quite interesting.

Quite a lot of Italians come here
and try my food and they go,

“Oh, this is so...like my mother
used to make traditional Italian.”

Oh wow, so it's not unusual at all,
in fact, if you go far enough back.

Yeah. And then when...the other thing
is using the local ingredients, yeah?

So using Noto local ingredients.

Doing Noto Italian is very
similar to Italian anyway,

because Italians use local,
local ingredients.

So if you go to a certain area,

they'll use those...
only those ingredients in that area.

OK, here we are.

Soup, in a Wajima lacquer bowl.

OK, I'm looking forward to this.
Thank you.

Thank you.

It's made from homegrown potatoes,
seasoned only with ishiri. Enjoy.

OK. Thank you.

It smells gorgeous.

Mmm.

It's a thick soup and very umami-ful.

Mmm. That's really, really good.

And homegrown potatoes.

Oh, it's so creamy.

It's amazing that we now
have this word “umami,”

because there's really nothing
else that describes it.

Not in my vocabulary anyway.

Next, cheese and cream pasta
with an ishiri and squid ink sauce.

Ishiri perfectly complements
the fermented cheese.

I wouldn't have known that the ishiri
was in there unless I'd been told.

And as with the other things,

it has this robust, savory taste to it.

It's, it's delicious.

Finally, fish roasted with ishiri.

The sauce is made using plenty
of homegrown garlic chives.

Mmm.

Ah, that's a...that's
a totally new taste for me.

It's green, so you're expecting
it to taste more vegetable-y,

but in fact the taste
is more of a seafood taste.

Doubtlessly is because of the ishiri.

Hello chef.

Hello, how was everything?

Wonderful.

Oh that's good.

I'm assuming that the ishiri
has something to do with that.

Yes, it does, actually.

It, it forces all of the flavors
out of everything. So.

Is there a knack to how you use it?

Yeah, there's a balance.

If you go too much, it becomes salty.

Sure.

So you've got to have that balance.

And so I learned that balance
through Chikako's parents.

So because when they use it
for dashi, and stuff like that,

they balance it perfectly,

so you just get exactly the right amount,
amount of flavor,

with the other flavors
coming through, yeah.

The bountiful sea and fields
of the Noto Peninsula

have nurtured a deeply rooted,
seasonal cuisine.

Flatt continues that tradition
of seasonal cooking,

but also uses local ingredients
in innovative ways.

The nice thing was I had really
good teachers, like Chikako's parents

were really, really good at teaching
all of that type of stuff.

So they, you know,
this was a day-to-day thing.

It's a cycle of a year,
and all of that cycle of one year

doing all that...doing all the preparation
of all different things

all throughout the year

sort of breaks it down quite well.

Oh, so there's a cycle
that goes...a seasonal cycle?

A seasonal cycle of what you do. Yeah.

Oh I see.

Yeah. So you basically,
you don't do it all, all the time,

you're not preparing
fermentations all the time.

You prepare certain things
at certain time of the year

and those things work for either festivals
in the middle of the year in Japan,

in Noto, because Noto has a lot
of summer festivals.

Oh right.

And a lot of that food's used for that.

And then you'd go back
into preparing for o-shogatsu,

and then you go back into
preparing again January, February

for the year again. So it's just a cycle.

So I had to learn all that too,

because a lot of Westerners have lost
that, understanding the cycle of life,

understanding where things come from and

what type of ingredients are
available only in these seasons,

when to pick them
and what's the right time to pick them,

and all those type of things.

You had to go back to the basics, yeah.

And I think Japanese people really
know the purpose of seasonal food as well,

because they know the flavors.

Where we buy tomatoes in Australia,

they've been in the fridge
for half a year ripening.

When they buy tomatoes here,
they buy them in season.

And they taste like tomatoes.

If you're lucky.

Well, out here they do!

Yeah.

Each season, Flatt makes
different fermented foods.

Here we have “Konka iwashi,”
sardines fermented in rice bran and salt.

It's a long-standing Noto
technique for preserving fish.

Like the sardines,

“Konka saba”—mackerel—
is fermented for several years.

So people's first impression of,

of a three, two-and-a-half-year-old fish
would be off. Yeah?

Right. Ah, okay.

But the smell you're getting, it's not.

It's wafting a bit now.

No, but the smell you're getting
is not off, it's a fermentation smell.

Right.

So it's actually quite
a good fermentation smell.

If it's a bad...if something's wrong
with it, you don't want to smell it.

You don't want to even open the bucket.

Okay,

fair enough.

And so the nice thing about it is...
if you look at it, look at the fish,

the fish has been in here for three years.

Mmm.

And it's...it looks like
the day it was put in here.

Oh right.

So this type of pickling,
you can pickle up...

You could pickle this up to
maybe four or five years

before it starts falling apart.

But it's really good around
the three-year mark.

Benjamin Flatt's fermented products,

and the Italian dishes that feature them,
are drawing international attention.

In 2015, food journalist Matt Goulding
devoted 30 pages of a book

to Flatt's cooking and guest house.

He was especially impressed
by the fermented mackerel.

He compared the impact of the fermentation
on the eater to an electric current.

The food is attracting
an increasingly international crowd.

To further spread awareness
of Noto cuisine,

Flatt bought and renovated
an old building.

- Hello!
- Welcome.

Chefs rent the kitchen for short periods,

and experiment with Noto's fermented
foods and local ingredients.

Chef Yokoyama Seiichi met Flatt
while visiting the Noto Peninsula,

and was captivated by the
local scenery and cuisine.

On this occasion, he has created
a new dish for his hosts to try.

Fresh figs, cooked in miso.

Mmm, interesting. It's tasty.

He's like a big brother to me.

That's how I feel.

Each morning he goes to the market,

then cooks breakfast for the guests.

He comes here to do renovation work,
then goes home.

And his cooking is still top level.

It's amazing.

I'm glad to have met him.

We don't work together directly,
but we're pretty close.

And I feel really lucky
to have this opportunity.

In 2022, in a project
for the town government,

Benjamin and Chikako taught a group
of local high school students

about the fermented food of Noto.

I think that

teaching traditional techniques
to local people is quite important.

I bring out our Konka iwashi
for them to taste,

and a lot of those people
had never tasted before.

Really?

So...but once they tasted it,
and once they heard our passion for it,

they suddenly all said we'd love to help.

Huh.

And learn more about it.

So it's only about...
it's only this far away from

people wanting to know more
about their own tradition anyway.

In my food, the way I do it

is show them that you can still use
these ingredients in modern food.

And for them, it opens their
eyes to something new.

So they don't think, “Oh, I have
to make a dashi, I have to do this...”

They can make a pasta,
and they can put ishiri in.

They're still using the ingredient.

You know, they can make a pizza
and put konka iwashi on it.

And they're still using
a local ingredient.

Not only are they using a local
ingredient, it tastes beautiful as well.

And it has and it has, you know,

all the umami flavors and all flavors
that you would get anyway. So.

Right.

On these Japanophile programs,
the last question is always the same one.

What is Japan to you?

Japan is... Japan... well, Noto,
for me, is...is a wonderful place.

It's a...it's somewhere
that I've learned a lot.

I've been taught a lot, and learned a lot.

Your father-in-law asked you
if you were going to

spend the rest of your life here.

How do you feel about it now?

Oh, I'll be here forever.

It's not...this is where my house is.

It's where my home is,
where my kids are, my family are.

All my friends are here.

I mean, I've got friends from Australia,
I visit them once a year.

Right.

I've got family in Australia,
I visit them once a year.

Right.

So it's...I have this great connection
both ways, but here it is.

I mean, look out the window.
I mean, look at that.

Yeah.

I sit here on my day off and...
on, around, on this table,

and do whatever type of work
I'm doing, and look out the window.

And I've got this beautiful scenery,
beautiful view,

beautiful culture, beautiful family.

So yeah, it's a good place to be.

OK, thank you very much.