Bamboo, Sake and Cherry Blossoms Tie Japanese Cheeses to Their Roots

Shibata holding an aged version of the Bamboo Charcoal Takesumi. photo credit Fromagerie Sen

When you imagine Japanese delicacies, cheese may not be the first food that comes to mind, but cheese in Japan has been rapidly growing in popularity over the last 10 years. In 2019, when Japan first entered the World Cheese Awards, over a dozen of their cheeses went home with an award.

Cheese the Japanese Way: subtlety and texture

In addition to mastering the classic European styles of cheese, Japanese cheesemakers seek to make their own imprint on the cheese world, often with ingredients and inclusions that are most familiar to their customers. “For Japanese cheesemakers, the use of local ingredients is often a desire to express local Japanese traditions in their cheeses,” says Malory Lane, a Japanese Cheese expert. “Because Japanese cheeses are still not exported abroad, Japanese cheesemakers are making cheese for the Japanese palette. It is extremely different from the Western palette in preferences, valuing subtlety and texture over the Western need to pop intense flavor out of everything. Adding cherry blossoms (sakura), washing the cheese in sake, or aging it in miso, allows the cheesemaker to bridge the gap between the “foreignness” of cheese and to bring it local.”

Ubusuna, a cheese using bamboo charcoal, in a shape that reflects takenoko or bamboo root. Photo credits to Kana Oyama

Using traditional ingredients

Chiyo Shibata of Fromagerie Sen sprinkles bamboo ash on her Takesumi cheese to inhibit the growth of undesirable mold and prevent it from drying out. But she also fashions these cheeses in the cone shape of the takenoko, or bamboo root, a favorite seasonal vegetable for which her town of Otaki is renowned, to marry function and form. Shibata’s love affair with cheese goes way back. When she was in second grade, her father, who was a mechanic for Air France, took her to France, where the cheese made a deep impression. At the age of 18, she decided to become a cheesemaker and apprenticed in Hokkaido and France. She opened Sen in 2014 and in 2017 was the first woman to be awarded a distinguished award from the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Her cheeses are made by hand in a 120-year-old farmhouse.

“I’ve been making cheeses that utilize Japanese ingredients from the very beginning,” says Shibata. “After spending a year apprenticing with a cheese artisan in France, I realized that I wanted to create something that uniquely represented the character and qualities of Japan, as opposed to a different version of something that clearly already had its own sense of place.” She is pleased to note that her customers naturally nibble her cheeses with chopsticks, just the way she envisioned, without any prompting. “I want to create a cheese that feels entirely at home with the flavors and qualities inherent to washoku,” says Shibata. (Washoku refers to the harmonious blending of seasonal ingredients in beautifully presented traditional Japanese meals.) “My cheeses are rich in umami and pair beautifully with nihonshu (Japanese sake). It makes me incredibly happy to see that customers are enjoying my cheeses the way I envisioned.”

Defining Japanese cheese: the essence of Japan

"Making shio koji" by 305 Seahill is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

In her cheesemaking, Shibata is currently also using sake-lees (which result from the pressing of sake), as well as shio-koji (a salted rice mold). She is experimenting with other ingredients, such as nukadoko (the unique composition of rice bran and salt used in the traditional fermentation of Japanese-style pickles) and prickly sansho pepper. “For me,” says Shibata, “‘Japanese Cheese’ is something crafted through the sensibilities of Japanese artisans, employing their skill and ingenuity coupled with local ingredients to create something that encapsulates the essence of Japan. I’ve spent the past 8 years working at a microbial research center [in addition to making cheese]. With [the center's] cooperation I’ve been able to obtain both yeasts and lactic acid bacteria native to the adjacent dairy farm where I source the milk for my cheeses.” She adds that Japan generally employs very strict rules for sterilization and pasteurization and is reluctant to support the use of native microbes and cultures, “However, it’s those living organisms which become expressions of the land, making them essential to creating something that’s truly an expression of Japan. My goal is to take the top prize across the world’s prestigious cheese competitions with a cheese crafted from the microbes and ingredients entirely unique to, and which express the character of Japan.”