Editor’s note: In the Taste of Life series, cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.

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“The ingredients talk to me. My hands move as if they are led by the voices,” says chef Yutaka Kitazaki on the changes he noticed in his cooking after moving to the Noto Peninsula.

At markets in big cities, ingredients that arrive from all over vie to stay ahead of the season. Yet, in Noto, Ishikawa Prefecture, all you get are the things in front of you and things you can touch. It feels as if you are standing in the middle of the season.

Kitazaki now uses less seasonings. Although soy sauce and sugar have a strong presence, he tries to imagine how people, who lived in the days when they were unavailable, enjoyed food.

He centers his cooking on the salty taste derived from the sea, savoriness given by the Earth and the umami and sweetness inherent in the ingredients and uses spices and a bit of oil that work as a bridge to a modern taste.

Kitazaki recalls his childhood when he used to visit his grandmother with his younger sister whenever school holidays came up. She lived in Anamizu, located in the center of the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, and there was a small field between the sea and the main building of the house.

His grandmother would set out in a small boat to catch shellfish and small fish that were simply delicious. It was nature and not man that determined the day’s menu.

Kitazaki’s version of “imodako,” literally “potato and octopus,” will be introduced this week. In Noto, families freeze octopus caught in the summer and make this dish when they dig up satoimo yams in the fall.

He gave it a twist and paired the newly harvested potato with octopus whose season begins in spring. The dish offers a deep flavor, thanks to the olive oil that serves as a spice that adds not only richness but also an aroma.

The lacquer bowl from Wajima in Ishikawa Prefecture used to serve the octopus and potato is not decorative.

Akito Akagi, the lacquerware artist who opened the auberge, thinks that bowls and dishes used to serve food are tools to sustain life.

“Even though you don’t convey the season through the picture depicted on the bowl, the season itself turns into dishes in Noto,” says Kitazaki.

This is the answer he arrived at by coming face to face with Akagi’s lacquerware.

Spring has arrived on the sea, the fields … The ingredients and those who cultivate them are waiting in Noto.

Thinking that “if only the water starts running,” Kitazaki is focused on reopening the auberge. He has his concerns but hopes that “those who visit us will feel happy on their way back.”

This is his enduring wish as a chef.

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Born in Ishikawa Prefecture in 1972, Yutaka Kitazaki is the head chef of an auberge. After graduating from International Christian University, his interest in the world of craftwork led him to become a cook. He is the head chef of Saryo Somamichi, an auberge offering Japanese cuisine, which opened in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in 2023.

BASIC COOKING METHOD

Main Ingredients (Serves 2)

1 leg of octopus (150 grams) boiled, 1 potato, 50 ml boiling liquid of octopus, 30 ml olive oil

1. Rub and rinse off stickiness on surface of fresh octopus. Add octopus and enough water to cover it in pot and place on heat. When pot comes to a boil, turn to low heat and cook for about 3 hours until the meat that hardened at one point becomes tender again.

2. Steam whole unpeeled potato until soft. Peel and break apart roughly by hand.

3. Add boiling liquid containing flavor and saltiness of octopus in pot. Add olive oil and place on low heat. Heat while swiftly moving whisk, with the tip touching the bottom of pot, back and forth. When the sauce emulsifies and thickens, turn off the stove.

4. Cut octopus into appropriate size and serve with potato. Pour sauce from (3).

About 220 kcal and 0.4 gram salt per portion
(Nutrient calculation by the Nutrition Clinic of Kagawa Nutrition University)

 This is the last installment of the “Taste of Life” series. A new series will begin shortly.

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From The Asahi Shimbun’s Jinsei Reshipi (Life Recipe) column