A 144-Year-Old Workshop Still Makes the World's Hardest Food by Hand
How Japanese Dried Bonito Is Made
In Nishi-Izu, Japan, Kanesa Katsuobushi Shoten has been making katsuobushi since 1882. Fifth-generation craftsman Yasuhisa Serizawa still uses the tebiyama method, an open-flame smoke-drying technique dating to the Edo period that only a few workshops in Japan preserve. Fresh bonito is filleted, boiled for 90 minutes, smoke-dried more than ten times over a hand-tended wood fire, patched with bonito paste, fermented with koji mold, and sun-dried for months until it is as hard as wood and shines like a jewel.
The tebiyama smoking method is said to produce dried bonito flakes with a rich flavor because the surface of the bonito is smoked all at once with the high temperature of an open flame, locking in the umami.