Photo/Illutration Tadashi Katsuren cooks the Okinawa “soba” noodle dish on May 11 in Campo Grande, Brazil. (Rihito Karube)

CAMPO GRANDE, Brazil--It all started in 1965, when a couple from Okinawa Prefecture decided to offer this Brazilian city a specialty dish from their homeland.

The Okinawan “soba” noodle is now so popular in Camp Grande that it is considered part of the local culture.

Located 900 kilometers northwest of Sao Paulo and 19,000 km from Okinawa Prefecture, Campo Grande has a population of 900,000, including 10,000 people of Japanese origin mainly from Okinawa.

Almost all of the 30 restaurants in the central market in the city’s core serve Okinawa soba.
In Okinawa Prefecture, pork bones are used to cook the soup and pork ribs are placed on top of the noodles.

Consumption of beef exceeds that for pork in Campo Grande, so many eateries in the city create the broth with cattle bones and top the noodles with beef.

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Tadashi Katsuren’s Okinawa “soba” noodle bowl uses a broth made from pork bones and toppings of pork, Welsh onions and eggs. (Rihito Karube)

“Residents of this city love the meal even if they do not have Japanese roots,” said Tadashi Katsuren, 29, the third-generation Japanese-Brazilian manager of one of the market’s Okinawan soba shops.

People from Okinawa started moving to Campo Grande in the 1900s.

The Katsuren family reached the city in 1954 for “a more stable life” following the devastation of the Battle of Okinawa and the postwar U.S. military rule of the prefecture.

Hiroshi Katsuren, Tadashi’s grandfather, worked at a coffee plantation and thought Okinawans in the city would be delighted if they could taste a delicacy from their homeland.

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Yasuko Katsuren checks an old photo with her grandson, Tadashi, on May 11 in Campo Grande, Brazil. (Rihito Karube)

Hiroshi and his wife, Yasuko, now 92, opened an Okinawa soba stall in the market in 1965.

Their stall became quite popular and attracted many emigrants. Before they knew it, Okinawan soba was being offered throughout the city.

The number of Okinawa soba shops in Campo Grande is now estimated at more than 100.

The specialty from Okinawa was registered as an intangible cultural property of the Brazilian city in 2006.

It was also selected by city residents as the most favorite local dish in 2018.

Yasuko has been interviewed by local media about how she started the dish here.

She was raised in present-day Nago in Okinawa Prefecture. Her older brother and a cousin were killed in World War II.

Although she has lived in Brazil for nearly 70 years, Yasuko said she still has a strong desire to explain the tragic history of her homeland prefecture, which just marked the 50th anniversary of its reversion to Japanese sovereignty.

“Difficulties on the Okinawa mainland, combined with the daunting history of those who left Okinawa for destinations around the globe, should be properly passed down to posterity,” Yasuko said.

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