Not only is Tsukiji fish market one of best places in Tokyo to visit, its one of the most photogenic too.

A few years ago I did a small project photographing people who work in the market. I have around 100 impromptu portraits.

Usually, I just approached people explained what I was doing, asked if I could take their photo, took it as quickly as I could, then said thanks and left.

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Some photos from a little while ago that I’ve finally got round to posting (that happens a lot!)

This is the owner of Marutou wasabi farm. If you are ever near the tip of the Izu peninsula, pay him a visit. He lives in one of the most beautiful Japanese villages I’ve ever seen.

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One thing the English (I’m from England) and the Japanese share in common – other than constantly talking about the weather – is a love of tea.

Last year I was asked to write about green tea and interview Masamitsu Takau, a registered “tea sommelier”. When I checked out his website I was surprised and pleased to find his green tea shop, Shigetsuen” within walking distance of my home. He is the third generation of his family to run the shop.

As well as selling tea, Takau runs tea classes in his shop, researches the brew and travels the world lecturing on tea. He told me he’s been to the US four times, Europe four times and Taiwan eight times. He’s also written several books.

As Takau explained to me, the tea he deals in isn’t the rarefied brew of the tea ceremony. He makes and sells the ordinary Japanese cuppa. “I’m involved in something that is part of everyday life: how to enjoy tea.”

This is bancha, a lower grade green tea.

This is some of the good stuff. Hand rolled.

The tea in his shop is shrink-wrapped on the premises.

We chatted a little about green tea around the world. One fascinating thing I learned was that at the time of World War One, Americans actually drank more green tea than black tea – albeit they drank it just like black tea, ie with milk and sugar.

Meanwhile, in Japan, what is now everyday green tea (sencha) was too precious for anything except export.

As you might expect, Takau was pretty scathing about the popularity of PET bottle tea (“It all tastes the same”). Sadly, people simply don’t have time or the patience to brew up any more.

Green tea, Dec 2009 – Images by Tony McNicol

Tsukiji fish market is quickly turning into the photo destination in Tokyo. It’s colourful, chaoatic and real. It’s open 24 hours a day and about 10,000 people work there. What could be better?

(Just ignore the fact that officially the public, including tourists, aren’t allowed in the market).

Tsukiji fish market

I took my first photos at Tsukiji about two years ago. I wouldn’t quite call it a project, but I’ve been back plenty since for various food and drink related stories.

Unquestionably, its the market workers who make Tsukiji so photogenic. I found the best time to shoot there is 9am or 10am when people are winding down for the day.

If you are interested in reading more about the market there is an excellent book by anthropologist Theodore Bestor.

Tsukiji fish market, Nov 2009 – Images by Tony McNicol

When I met Mitsuyasu Uchibori he gave me a business card that read “Summelier No 001″. He is Japan’s premier vinegar sommelier.  (Su-memlier is a pun on the Japanese word of vinegar, su.)

And quite the showman . . .

Uchibori runs a 130 year old vinegar company in central Japan and a chain of drinking vinegar shops in Takashimaya department stores. The vinegar boutiques sell a range of fruit vinegars.

I tried several and they are rather like an unusally acidic fruit juice. Very nice.

Uchibori has vinegar bar in Tokyo station too. They have Ai-su Cream and Su-fu-to cream desserts and a few alcoholic vinegar cocktails. I recommend the ginger vinegar and beer.

A word of warning though. If you are not used to drinking vinegar don’t go crazy trying the whole menu. I had quite a stomach ache the evening after this shoot.

Vinegar is very good for your health but about 10cc  a day is right.

Drinking Vinegar, Nov 2009 – Images by Tony McNicol

As I’ve written on this blog before, Tsukiji is about my favourite place in Tokyo. For anyone who’s interested in food – indeed in Japan – there is a lifetime’s worth of stuff to see, eat, learn and photograph.

These photos are from a long feature I did recently on fugu (blowfish). Someone I interviewed for a story on kamaboko very kindly introduced me to the main fugu dealer, Otsubo Suisan.

One of their staff holding a worried looking blowfish:

As you may know, fugu is famous mostly because it is (well, can be) incredibly poisonous. There’s a poison in the skin, gonads and especially liver of the fish that’s 1000 times the strength of cyanide.

This is Otsubo’s stall in the market.

The fish is so dangerous, and so expensive, that it has to be taken good care of. Fugu fillets are packed in these special boxes before being sent to customers.

This being Japan almost every part of the fish gets eaten. These are fugu fins for putting in hot sake.

I lucked out with this story because Otsubo’s owner invited me to his Ginza fugu restaurant. That is a 1 million yen solid silver fugu shaped tureen.

Classic fugu sashimi. You wrap the fugu around the chives and fugu skin in the center of the dish, then squeeze a little citrus over it.

Fugu, Oct 2009 – Images by Tony McNicol

I writing this from frigid December Bath in the UK. Brrrr. I think these photos are actually making me feel colder.

At the end of summer I travelled up to Katsunuma in Yamanashi prefecture. The area is home to Japan’s largest winemaker, Mercian, and 80 odd little wineries open for visiting and tasting. Katsunuma’s wine-making traditions go right back to the Meiji period.

koshu grapes

Somewhat improbably, Japan actually has a native wine-grape, the Koshu variety. The story is that seeds came along the silk road from Europe centuries ago and were grown in the Katsunuma area to produce eating grapes. It was only after Japan opened to the West that the grapes were used to make wine.

picking koshu grapes

This is the Mercian winery: Chateau Mercian. I had a pretty poor image of Mercian wine, being familar with the sweet purple gloop that you see in Japanese convenience stores.

But it was Mercian that devised a way to make “Koshu white” using the Katsunuma grapes. It’s a good wine, and not as expensive as you might think.

This is Shigekazu Misawa who runs Grace Wine. He’s part of a group of 14 Katsunuma winemakers who are trying to export the local wine. When we met Misawa said he’ll be in London 2010 for a special Japanese wine-tasting event at the Japanese Embassy.

Yamanashi wine, Oct 2009 – Images by Tony McNicol

Perhaps only Japan would have an event celebrating “2nd class food”? It’s probably something to do with the fact that even the fast food in Japan tends to be very good.

This year the B1 Grand Prix was held in Yokote-city up in Akita prefecture. B1 stands for B-Class Gourmet, foods like yakisoba, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, koroke and oden. As one person I interviewed put it, “The price may be b-class but the taste is a-class”. Over two days some 260,000 people attended. (I guess there isn’t that much to do in Akita?). Some of them queued for over two hours for their favorite foods.

I had a lot of fun photographing the visitors . . .

B1 Grand Prix

B1 Grand Prix, Sept 2009 – Images by Tony McNicol

There are some photographic subjects that are not exactly obviously photogenic. This was definitely one: Kamaboko AKA Japanese fish cake. I was shooting the white pasty food for an airline magazine. So what to do?

I visited a kamaboko factory in the inner Tsujiki fish market and the same company’s kamaboko shop in the outer market.

My internet research started with kamaboko.com which gets my vote for the coolest domain name of 2009. It is owned by a kamaboko maker based in Odawara, about an hour from Tokyo. When I visited I found they had one of the slickest PR operations of any company I’ve ever covered. Next to their office and factory was a huge kamaboko shop, several restaurants, and  a kamaboko museum with kamaboko making classes for children.

Unbelieveably, they get TWO MILLION visitors a year.

making kamaboko at Tsukiji

kamaboko steamer

chilled summer oden containing kamaboko

The “Home of kamaboko” in Odawara

kamaboko making lesson

kamaboko in the shape of toy cars!

Kamaboko fish cake, August 2009 – Images by Tony McNicol

Another shoot to add to my expanding menu of stories on Japanese food. This time I covered arguably the core ingredient of Japanese cuisine, the ingredient without which Japanese food probably wouldn’t exist: dashi fish stock.

The first place I went to was Tsukiji Tamura a famous ryotei not far from the fish market in Tokyo. I wanted to ask the head chef and owner, Takashi Tamura all about dashi.

This is him preparing “ichiban dashi”, the kind where you only soak the bonito flakes in the water for a short while. He looked like a circus juggler with all those pans and did it so quickly. I had to ask him to make two lots. Luckily the kitchen was pretty bright with lots of shiny aluminum surfaces I could bounce my strobe off. I’m not sure why the background has come out so yellow, but it could have been worse.

making dashi

Tsukiji Tamura

The next place I checked out was the little shop that supplies the restaurant’s katsuobushi. Tamura uses the very best, most expensive kind of bonito flakes, honkarebushi.

This is the shop owner, Kawabe san. It’s not much more than a stall in the corner of an mall in the Tsukiji outer market. Kawabe was a bit nervous, so I caught this semi-candid photo as he was carrying some boxes. That’s his mother in the background I think.

katsuobushi shop

As food stuffs go katsuobushi is pretty unusual. It’s possibly the hardest foodstuff known to man, and one of the most beautiful. Look at the ruby inside of this katsuobushi. Kawabe had to slam it on the edge of his desk three times before it broke.

katsuobushi

The other key ingredient for dashi is kombu (kelp). Suita shoten also supplies Tsukiji Tamura and is just a minute’s walk away from the katsuobushi shop. This is the owner Suita-san. He was a pretty relaxed guy.

I love photographing food producers, sellers and chefs.They always seem to look healthy and contented . . . which is not always the case with some of the business portraits I also do.

kombu shop

Lot’s of kombu. Kombu has more “umami” than any other foodstuff. Combined with katsuobushi in dashi, the umami effect is multiplied many times. Here’s a link to the book on dashi and umami which set me off on this article. Tamura’s dashi recipes are in the book. (He’s also a cookbook writer and NHK TV chef)

kombu

More dashi katsuobushi and kombu photos . . .

Dashi, katsuobushi and kombu, July 2009 – Images by Tony McNicol