Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a five-part series looking at the lives of people in Fukushima Prefecture with a particular focus on their meals 12 years after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 2011. Through their meals, the series depicts how the nuclear power plant disaster totally changed people’s lives in the region.

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OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture--Ichiro Takano was preparing dinner alone at his home in the town here, which co-hosts the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

His wife had made a meal for him including “nikujaga” (simmered meat and potatoes), “kiriboshi-daikon” (dried strips of radish) and “harusame" (vermicelli salad) and put them in containers.

While heating the containers in the microwave, Takano, 73, made miso soup with fried tofu and green onion on the evening of Jan. 20. 

Looking at the green onion, which was overcooked, he said, “Actually, they taste better when they are half-cooked.”

“In the old days, we couldn’t think of men in the kitchen. But we have to do it to survive,” he muttered.

Takano is torn between wanting to continue cultivating crops in his field here and being forced to live apart from his wife, who doesn't want to return to their former home. 

Few residents have returned to Okuma after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, which spawned the triple meltdowns at the plant. On this night, the silence is broken by a fire truck passing through the nearly deserted town with its sirens blaring. 

Takano shuttles back and forth between Iwaki city, where he evacuated to, and Okuma, where his home is located.

He visits the town every week or two to tidy up his garden and clean his house.

When he stays here once a month, he is always alone. His wife said she doesn’t really want to return to the town because none of her acquaintances in the neighborhood have returned and it feels lonely.

There is no nearby supermarket and Takano has to drive to a neighboring town about 10 kilometers away to shop.

“The families are divided on whether to return,” he said, noting that many husbands want to come back but many wives do not.

He said that an acquaintance lives alone in Okuma despite having to be apart from his wife.

Takano’s father died when he was in junior high school, leaving his mother to raise five children.

He was the eldest son, so he worked hard cultivating the field with his mother.

Whenever his mother’s vegetables were entered in the town’s agricultural fair, they always won high prizes.

He is proud of his mother, who had a green thumb.

Therefore, Takano cannot simply give up the land he worked with her. 

He continued to grow rice even while employed as a high school teacher.

After retiring and having more free time, he devised ways to spread fertilizer to the soil to improve the quality of the harvest. That resulted in the production of high-quality rice that earned it a good reputation in the town.

Just as he was thinking, “I’ll continue to grow better rice and vegetables,” the nuclear accident occurred and the evacuation order was given. 

Takano said he wants to return to Okuma and someday eat the vegetables he has grown.

However, the evacuation order has not yet been lifted for the farmland right next to his house. He is not allowed to plant crops.

The order was lifted only for the residential area where his home is located, which keeps an “invisible border” around the premises.

“Even if people say I’m an idiot, I want to resume farming,” he said. “I’m doing it, pretending not to know (the order has not been lifted).”

Takano began a test cultivation without obtaining permission in 2015, four years after the accident.

In addition to vegetables such as green onions, radishes and carrots, he also produces persimmons and chestnuts every year and submits them for radiation testing.

He said that all of the crops he has grown have fallen below the government standard of 100 becquerels per kilogram.

He said he keeps growing crops to continuously record radiation levels.

“Nobody gives me the data, so I have to do it myself,” he said. “Without seeing the numerical numbers, we can’t feel safe.”

Takano grows vegetables on a trial basis because he believes that the day will come when he can eat the vegetables he has grown here without concern.

However, he doesn’t have the confidence to continue having dinner alone, away from his wife.

“Sometimes I think I could not live here,” he said. “I can’t just divorce my wife.”

He sighed as he poured water into the rice cooker to cook rice.

“Even though water comes out of the tap, I had to bring plastic bottles of water with me," Takano said. "Everything is half in doubt.”