Passing on food culture to future generations!
An innovative food community born in Kanazawa.
<Part 2>

This month, we bring you the movements driving the food scene from Kanazawa.Following the Alembic Ohno Distillery reported in the first part, the second part introduces the OPENSAUCE initiative, which connects the old and the new in a wonderful way.

writer：Ryoko Kuraishi

Mr Nakagawa (left) from Alembic Ohno Distillery and Mr Miyata (right), founder of OPENSAUCE.

'What taste do we want to bequeath to the future?'

I have long heard rumours of a unique food community in Kanazawa.It is called OPENSAUCE.

The company is using the latest technology to conduct R&D with the aim of passing on the roots and traditions of food, providing opportunities for overseas chefs to experience Japanese food culture, pursuing food and agriculture from new angles, and has recently launched an agricultural venture division and a sake brewing division.The company is also pursuing food and agriculture from a new angle, and has recently launched an agricultural venture and a sake brewing division.

The founder of OPENSAUCE is Hitoshi Miyata, a musician who has worked extensively with film production and IT companies.
He moved to Kanazawa in 2010 after the birth of his child.

She set up OPENSAUCE because she began to think about what home cooking she would remember when her children grew up.

A_RESTAURANT is located in the centre of Kanazawa.A bowling alley on the second floor of a building has been fully renovated.The kitchen is visible at the back.

I left my parents' home a little earlier than other people, at the age of 18, but there are a number of 'mother's tastes' that remain in my memory.

A typical 'Miyata family taste' in my opinion is a dish in which onions and shiitake mushrooms are boiled in sake and mirin, and flavoured with soy sauce, sugar, salt, falcon claws and lemon juice.

It was a regular dish that appeared on the dining table several times a month in my family, but when I asked my primary school classmates, they said they had never seen or heard of such a dish.

When I asked my mother about it, she told me that it was an appropriate adaptation of a dish that Thai maids used to make when they lived in Bangkok in the past.

I found it interesting that a dish born in Bangkok has become a part of the Miyata family's taste and is now made by me, my brother and my wife.The roots and transmission of food are much more extensive than I had imagined.

Even so-called traditional Japanese food and home cooking must have their own stories.I now want to bequeath them to the future as culture along with their flavours."

A_RESTAURANT offers a range of dishes with different techniques and ingredients, and is also keen on drink pairings.

While there are many researchers and chefs working on 'food heritage', what makes OPENSAUCE unique is that it uses modern technology to develop software that anyone can use to develop and research food culture, and to publish the results on an open platform.

The base of this activity is A_RESTAURANT, a restaurant and research and development organisation for chefs.

It is equipped with a large kitchen, as its main focus is on food research.This is where the chefs present the results of their research.

The staff of KNOWCH made the transition from a different industry and moved to Kanazawa.Satoshi Murata, the head of KNOWCH, also came from a different industry. Originally a financial salesman, he became interested in agriculture when he started holding workshops for farmers, many of whom were his clients at the time.

You can find an entry point into agriculture, which is responsible for the food base.

In 2019, he launched the agricultural venture KNOWCH.

While researching the future of food, he was confronted with the challenges faced by modern agriculture, such as abandoned land and farmers leaving farming, and wanted to contribute to solving these problems.

Mr Miyata says that even though he had the will to connect agriculture, he did not even know how to get into farming.

Because of the Agricultural Land Law, it is not easy to acquire agricultural land unless you have been a farmer for generations (at the time), and without agricultural land you cannot become a farmer (qualified agricultural land-owning corporation).

Therefore, together with Satoshi Murata, the representative of KNOWCH, we came up with the idea of developing an agricultural platform to free farmers from these ties and the old system.

Abandoned farmland is to be used by motivated producers, and the "agricultural knowledge" passed on to farmers is to be passed on to the next generation, raising the "agricultural value" of everyone.

KNOWCH is currently cultivating grapes in Japan and New Zealand, while exploring new forms of farming and agriculture.

Meanwhile, the Alembic Ohno Distillery, which took on the challenge of producing distilled spirits for the first time in Kanazawa, can be described as another team that is responsible for an 'OPENSAUCE' type of manufacturing site.

OPENSAUCE, which pursues food and agriculture, brings together various members who share the concept of 'the future of food'.

Although their stance and activities are completely different, they embody the values of OPENSAUCE in the same way as KNOWCH.

'I talked to Miyata-san, who I've known for 20 years, about 'starting a sake brewery' and he invited me to come to Kanazawa if I wanted to start my own business.

He had just started the agricultural sector, and he also sympathised with my sake brewing, so I decided to set up as a member of OPENSAUCE' (Nakagawa).

A_RESTAURANT is equipped with a waiting bar and guest shifts can be organised.

Apart from distilled spirits, they are currently working on sake production.

A long-established sake brewery with a history of 375 years in Higashi Chikuho County, Nagano Prefecture, is planning to relocate to Matsukawa Village, Azumino City, and OPENSAUCE is responsible for this project.

It is not just about making sake.The plan is to revive the 'Kinmon-nishiki' rice, a native variety of Hokushin and known as 'fantastic sake rice', and brew sake using water from the underground streams of the Goratateyama mountain range.

The first brewing after the relocation is scheduled for autumn 2024, with doburoku and whisky production also being considered beyond that.

What is Miyata-san's vision for OPENSAUCE? ......

The other day, we opened a jazz club called Asile in Katamachi, Kanazawa, and invited young jazz musicians in their 20s and 30s for the opening.

They are very good performers, and I heard that they honed their skills by repeatedly watching live performances of legendary musicians on YouTube.

In the 1990s, as a person involved in the IT industry, I went through a lot of hard work to popularise the internet, and I felt that I was witnessing the moment when that hard work came to fruition.

In the same way, I hope that the OPENSAUCE initiative, which conveys the roots of food with high resolution, will leave some kind of mark on the food world 20 or 30 years from now.

I have high hopes for the food scene of the future in this way" (Miyata).