Yoshinori Horii: Carrying on the Tradition of Sarashina Soba and Being Selected as a "Contemporary Master Craftsman"

Thank you very much. The "Master Craftsman" award is typically given to artisans who have supported a craft, like someone at a kimono shop who has spent their whole life dedicated solely to dyeing. I took over my family business right after graduating from university and entered the workshop to polish my family's soba techniques. So, while I am the president now, in a sense, I have a very strong artisan side. I'm happy that this aspect was recognized; it feels like a reward for my life's work.

The founding of "Sarashina Horii" dates back to the first year of Kansei (1789). Originally, our ancestor, who traveled between Shinshu and Edo as a cloth peddler, was apparently very skilled at making soba. Danjo Hoshina, the lord of Shinshu, had his main residence in Azabu, so he encouraged my ancestor to come to Edo and start a soba shop. That was the beginning.

We took the "Sara" from Sarashina District in Shinshu and the "Shina" from the Hoshina family name, and started in Azabu-juban under the name "Shinshu Sarashina Soba-dokoro."

Since the lord was our sponsor, we had many connections, and it seems he introduced us to high-profile customers, including the Shogun's family. A lord wouldn't walk through a shop curtain to eat. Therefore, all the soba had to be delivered to the residences. For delivery soba, if it's dark soba like mori soba, it has a lot of protein and becomes sticky and clumps together. So, we milled the flour and sifted it through a fine sieve to provide white soba.

That's right. Furthermore, in the Meiji era, the fourth generation decided to "make it even whiter" and changed the sifting and milling methods for Sarashina. He then collaborated with a company called Ishimori Seifun, with whom we still have a relationship today, to create "Sarashina flour."

At a time when mori soba was 15 sen, it was sold for 1 yen, so it was a considerably high-end product. In today's terms, if mori soba is 500 yen, it would be like selling it for 3,000 or 4,000 yen. But perhaps thanks to the connections from the Edo period, it was well-received by the nobility and others. We would deliver 400 or 500 portions for garden parties and such; it was quite popular during the Meiji period.

Moreover, because it could be easily loosened even after being boiled and left for a while, it could be transported long distances, so the business thrived. However, when a business goes well, a prodigal son often appears, and my grandfather was quite a playboy (laughs). He owned two Leica cameras, and according to my grandmother, he would come to the shop with a woman, take the shop's money, and head straight to Atami by taxi. Additionally, the bank he had invested in went bankrupt during the depression, and the shop was forced to close in 1941.

However, because it was a famous shop, after the war, local people in Azabu-juban said, "Let's definitely rebuild it," and provided funds to revive it as "Nagasaka Sarashina," which is still in the center of the shopping district today. My grandfather joined that shop, and my father also joined in 1960 after graduating from university. It was the period of high economic growth, so they were mass-producing and supplying department stores.

But even though it was thriving, my father began to think, "Wasn't our family's soba even more delicious?" He wanted to revive it once more as a family business, as Horii's soba, and make the truly delicious soba from the old days. So, in 1984, the year I graduated from university, he opened an independent shop at our current location.

But because "Nagasaka Sarashina" already existed, we didn't sell well at all at first. However, we discovered that shops that had become independent from us before the war still retained traditional Edomae techniques, such as traditional hand-kneading and methods for making the dipping sauce. We went to learn from them again and gradually got the shop into shape.

What my father and I did was like a return to our roots; it was an antithesis to mass production, an attempt to revive the old ways of working. We put in the extra effort to bring back the home-milling of the Edo period, simmered the sauce for long hours, and used double-boilers. We unearthed techniques that were about to disappear and revived Edomae soba. I think that is what was recognized.

Of course, I think there was an element of elegance, but the production method was complex and expensive, so commoners wouldn't buy it. However, because of the lord's connections, there were customers who would purchase it.

That's right. I went there and to "Nunotsune Sarashina" in Omori Kaigan for my apprenticeship.

I did consider staying for graduate school. Professor Natsuo Mikumo even asked me, "What are you going to do?" I also had a desire to study more practical subjects like economics or getting an MBA in the US.

While I was wavering, my father told me, "You are the ninth generation, so you have a mission." I think that made me reconsider, thinking, "Maybe I have a value for existing here."

At that time, that might have been all I felt. After all, being born into such a family, I might have had pride in being the ninth generation. I was reviving a shop that was once called a famous establishment. Being born into such a house might have become a part of my identity.

I think I read quite a lot of books. My graduation thesis was on Descartes, so I read things like "Meditations" until the book was falling apart, and I think I read Husserl quite thoroughly as well.

I have very fond memories of holed up in the library, reading books quite happily. I still read philosophy books today. I re-read all of Bergson by last year.

I like Bergson. I really like Hideo Kobayashi, and I'm quite fond of French philosophy like Alain and Valéry. People who played a musical instrument as students are on a completely different level later on, aren't they? It's the same as that; I think it's like a special skill of mine, being able to say, "I used to read philosophy books as a student."

It does change, doesn't it? I think being in an environment where I could read such philosophy books for four years is a great treasure.

When running a business, I really feel the strength of the connections. There are truly many Keio people among those in long-established businesses, and there is certainly a sense of being able to open up to each other from the first time we meet.

I'm also a member of a group of long-established shops called the "Toto Noren-kai," and it's full of Keio people from places like Eitaro Sohonpo and Yamamoto Noriten. So, there's a sense of being able to fit right in.

That's right. Since around the time of President Torii, they have been coming consistently. Mr. Torii used to come to our shop regularly, and the previous President Haseyama has also been coming for a long time. Sometimes he's in a narrow spot at the very back, and I think, "Is it okay to confine the President to such a small space?" (laughs). I'm always happy when Keio people come.

First of all, the ingredients change. The soy sauce from when I started and the soy sauce today have different levels of mellowness and umami components. In the old days, if you left soy sauce on the table, it would turn black quickly, wouldn't it? But if I added sugar the same way as before, the sauce would become incredibly sweet. This is because the umami of the soy sauce has also become stronger.

Also, when I was young, I couldn't imagine having tea in a vending machine. In the past, sweet things were a treat, and for vending machines like Cheerio or Cola, people wouldn't spend money on anything that wasn't sweet. I think the whole world was oriented toward sweet things, an era where people wanted to consume calories.

But now, there isn't that same preference for sweet things. The world's sense of taste has changed. I probably inherited my own sense of taste from my father. There is a core like that, but there are parts where doing things the same way as my father won't work. So, against my internal standard of "delicious," the ingredients have changed and my body has changed, so I think it's about adjusting to that.

Therefore, my son, who is growing up with my sauce, will probably change the taste of the sauce in ten years. Even if the central part is inherited from ancestors, I think there are parts that we change more and more to suit the times.

Since we have continued for nine generations, I think there is a core part. However, while using that as a standard, I think we change the taste more and more to suit the times, like saying, "Let's make it a little sweeter based on this."

The first trigger for the overseas spread of Japanese food was in 2010, when a Japanese food festival called "Food of Japan" was held at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in the US. About 30 chefs specializing in Japanese cuisine, French, sushi, soba, tempura, etc., went from Japan.

People like Seizo Mikuni, Yukio Hattori, and Hiroo Rikiishi were there, and a Japanese food team was formed. From there, everyone worked together to lobby the government to register Japanese food as a cultural heritage. Then, in 2015, Washoku was registered as a World Intangible Cultural Heritage.

That team was also at the center of it. Since it was a food expo, it felt like we were trying to convey it to the people of the world.

It feels like it's still a bit behind compared to sushi or ramen. One of the charms of soba is slurping it, but people overseas often can't slurp well, and there are parts where they aren't yet familiar with buckwheat as a grain compared to wheat.

However, considering buckwheat on its own, it is gluten-free and has high nutritional value. My son (Yoshimitsu Horii, 2016 Policy Management) was in Professor Yoko Hasebe's seminar while at Keio and was planting buckwheat in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Apparently, it bore fruit and they were able to harvest it. The high infant mortality rate in Central Africa is due to a lack of protein and vitamin B1, and buckwheat can supplement that. Moreover, it grows in three months and can grow even in poor soil; that is the strength of buckwheat.

Buckwheat has high nutritional value and grows even in barren land, so while soba as a noodle is attractive, I think there are possibilities for the crop itself.

That's right. I was originally interested in veganism, and a company called Fuji Oil developed a technology called MIRACORE that creates a bonito-flavored extract by combining only plant-based ingredients. This works well even with something as concentrated as soba sauce.

Edo-style sauce involves simmering bonito flakes, but vegetable broths were thin, and until now, we couldn't make a concentrated sauce like soba sauce. However, by learning about MIRACORE, I encountered something that was exactly what I was looking for. After all, if you have an awareness of a problem within yourself, an encounter that provides a hint makes you think, "I can incorporate this." I think this is something I noticed precisely because I delved deep into Edomae techniques.

Mikio Sakai (1983, Commerce), the president of the Fuji Oil Group, is also a senior of mine from Keio by one year, and we served soba with that sauce at the Rengo Mita-kai Convention.

Quite a lot. At the main shop, 5% of sales are currently from inbound tourists. Even before COVID, we were introduced in videos overseas and people often came to us. I think the location, with many embassies nearby, also plays a role.

Not just for soba, but in the food and beverage industry itself, there are parts where young people aren't entering yet. So, I hope that by being in the spotlight as a "Master Craftsman," it becomes an industry where people think, "A soba shop is interesting."

I hope they see it's not just about technique, but also about expanding overseas or the vegan and gluten-free aspects, and think, "This is interesting as a business."

I want to pass on the things I've learned that I think "might become seeds for the future" to the next generation, saying, "This looks interesting, why don't you give it a try?"