"Agriculture in Tokyo" Press Tour"Edo vegetables" as "Kameido Daikon"

Foreign Press Center Japan http://fpcj.jp/ March 18, 2008 【"Agriculture in Tokyo" Press Tour】 Featuring farming in the Tokyo Metropolis, "Agriculture in Tokyo" Press Tour series vol. 1 covered such traditional "Edo vegetables" as "Komatsuna" and "Kameido Daikon", which go back to the Edo period. A total of 11 journalists from South Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.K., France, Germany, Israel and the EU participated, and they felt the passion and enthusiasm of the local people who are committed to preserving the old food culture. 【Comeback Story of Kameido Daikon】 In Kameido, Koto Ward, Tokyo, a Japanese restaurant, Masumoto, created a special local menu named "kameido daikon asari nabe", a combination of the vegetable and short-necked clams. Thanks to their collaborator who is a local grower of kameido-daikon, Japanese radish, they can still serve this old-fashioned everyday dish. Kameido-daikon was totally forgotten around1967-68. However, the contributor to its comeback was the previous manageress of this restaurant. Still, there were some remainig seed at the time. She asked the local farmers to grow it and kameido daikon again came in the spotlight. Another hero behind the scene of the comeback is Mr. Toichi Suzuki, 80-year-old kameido daikon grower, who took over the farm in Katsushika Ward, next to Koto Ward, from his father, grand father and great grand father. He continued producing kameido daikon alone in his farm, while the farmers in Kameido, a birthplace of kameido daikon, totally abondoned to do that. Asked by the previous manageress of the restaurant, he has been growing kameido daikon for more than three decades exclusively for the restaurant. "Only Mr. Suzuki was capable of getting a real kameido-daikon back and he produces excellent ones!", says Mr. Mitsunobu Tsukamoto, the current President, Masumoto Foods Inc, giving of his seal of approval. "A kameido-daikon is so small that you could eat leaves, too. They are good enough to be eaten", talks Mr. Suzuki about his daikon, with the old Tokyo dialect that now rarely heard. "I do feel it is worth doing, as nobody else does it. I hope I can leave something behind me", he adds not too eagerly but lightly, even philosophically.