Five Oldest Cooking Traditions | Still Standing

These cooking techniques are among the rarest and oldest in the world. From an 86-year-old dough maker in Greece who is one of the last to make thin phyllo by hand, to a family in India that uses methods dating back to the 1500s of trampling on cashew fruit to make a rare liquor, and the soy sauce artisan in Japan who brews his recipe in handmade barrels that last 100 years. We will take you on a tour of five of the world's culinary gems to see how their centuries-old traditions are still standing. Making phyllo by hand can take up to four hours. The super thin, layered dough is used in many dishes in Greek cuisine, like the famous baklava. And at 86 years old, Yurios Hatsiparaskos is one of the few bakers in Greece that still makes it manually. He started baking as a teenager and was able to buy his own workshop in the 1960s. At one point, bakeries like his were all over Greece. But the rise of cheap and efficient industrial baking meant that many mom-and-pop shops just couldn't stay afloat. Yurios found a way to stay in business by focusing on the tourist trade and employing only his wife, Katerina, and his son, Paraskevas. We visited their half-century-old bakery to see how it is still standing. Every day around 8 a.m., Yurios opens the doors to their workshop, and Katerina hangs signs to draw people in. The 17th-century Venetian-style house stands in the heart of the old town in Rethymno, on the Greek island of Crete. To start the phyllo dough, Yurios puts just three ingredients into a large mixer. Flour, water, and salt. Half an hour later, he transfers the mixture to this roller machine to be flattened and stretched. Paraskevas portions out smaller pieces that need to be exactly... One kilo, 300. While father and son knead the dough balls, mother cooks lunch. Yurios rolls each piece by hand, shaping them into discs. Then, it's time for the toss. There is a reason behind this eye-catching technique. The dough is stretched over and over again until the whole table is covered. It becomes so thin, you can read through it. Katerina covers each dough layer with linen to absorb moisture slowly without losing elasticity. Then, the family repeats the process layer by layer until there's several tissue-thin sheets stacked on each table. Going round and round the table is so physically demanding that Yurios has to rest in between turns. Once the dough is slightly dry, it's ready to be folded. For the Hatziparaskevas, it's almost like a dance with precisely coordinated movements, including a dusting of flour to prevent the sheets from sticking together. The phyllo leaves are then cut to size to be stored in the fridge until they're sold. But all this work doesn't guarantee big sales. So the family's profits rely mostly on the sweets sold to tourists that come in curious to see how phyllo is handmade. Machine-made phyllo is cheaper and faster. Efficient industrial production lines can churn out 100 to 300 kilograms of dough an hour. The stiff competition doesn't deter Yurios. He also makes kataifi, a shredded pastry that is even more taxing for the 86-year-old. It takes him three hours, and it sells for even less than the traditional sheets of phyllo. Pereskevas is actually an engineer, but he found himself without a job after the 2010 economic crisis in Greece. So he decided to help his parents with the family business. Just as Yurios' business depends on tourism, he too loves to travel when he can. If it weren't for the COVID-19 pandemic, he would have visited the Netherlands to see friends he made when they visited his shop year after year. Greece was quick to control the spread of the virus from the spring through the summer. But cases have spiked in the fall and brought the country to a nationwide second lockdown in November. Tourist traffic to the Hatsoporoskoses workshop has dropped significantly in 2020. Lines to get in weren't uncommon in better years. But it still remains an important landmark for the community, and locals will say it's the town's main attraction. It served as a reminder of the importance of their work. In virtue, a house shines. Soy sauce is one of the most important ingredients in Japanese cuisine. Yet only 1% of the country's supply is made through the traditional method of barrel aging. That's because it can take four years for one batch to go from barrel to bottle. Yasuo Yamamoto is a fifth-generation soy sauce maker and one of the only brewers in the country who hand-builds his own barrels. Most fermented seasonings in Japan used to be made this way. But industrialization replaced almost all the country's wooden barrels with steel. Today, the average soy sauce is made through a shorter, chemicalized process. So what does it take to make authentic soy sauce? And how is this centuries-old method still standing? What makes the soy sauce special is the wooden barrel, called kiyoke. One can last for over a century. Yasuo makes bamboo strips to wrap around the barrel, because the saltiness of the soy sauce can corrode metal. It takes at least three people to assemble one barrel. But not many do this anymore. After modern machinery took over the market, almost all kiyoke makers in Japan went out of business. So Yasuo learned to make his own. Before these barrels are put to use, crushed wheat and steamed soybeans are mixed with koji, the fungus that will kick-start the fermentation process. This giant vat regulates temperature so the fungus can grow. After two days, the mixture goes to the maromi house. This is where the wooden barrels help create the breeding ground for the bacteria. Over one ton of the soybean mixture fills each barrel, along with salt water. While Yasuo and his team stir, the soybeans bump up against each other and create tiny tears so that other bacteria can get in and start to break them down. The workers pump air into the barrel to make the aerobic yeast more active. Even though Yasuo says the microbes do most of the work, his part of the job is still demanding. He checks on the soybeans every day to see if they need mixing. And based on their scent and appearance, he can tell where they are in the process. The soybeans will ferment here for at least a year and a half. Yasuo has a team of experts who work on the process. He believes a good barrel is one that will outlive him. These types of barrels have been in production in Japan since at least the 17th century. But everything changed during World War II, when materials became more scarce and expensive in Japan. The government knew its people couldn't live without their staple seasoning. So they ordered factories to make production cheaper and faster, cutting the process from years to months. So while many brewers expanded and modernized, small businesses like Yasuo's family's could barely keep up. Yasuo stepped in in 2003, just before his father suddenly became sick and had to retire. So he had to take over and pull a struggling business out of debt. He also had to teach himself a lot of the process. Like how to use the press. After a year and a half of fermentation, Yasuo pipes the soybean mixture into this machine. He layers on a piece of traditional wrapping cloth. Then the machine slowly squeezes out the soy sauce over 10 days. Some industrial factories press it all at once. But Yasuo says getting a quality product is all about patience. After this stage, some of the soy sauce goes back into the barrel with more soybeans and wheat for two more years to make Yasuo's main product, saishikomi, a darker, stronger-tasting soy sauce. When the microbes have enough time to naturally ferment the soybeans, it gives the soy sauce a sweeter aftertaste. Some industrial brands mimic this by adding sweeteners. That balanced umami flavor is what chefs like Itoshi Kishimoto are after. He's been running his restaurant, Kayomi, in Shoroshima for five years. For almost every dish, he cooks with naturally fermented soy sauce, including Yasuo's brand. In order for traditional soy sauce to continue, barrel production needs to keep up. That's why Yasuo holds barrel-making workshops every year. He sells his authentic soy sauce to people all over the world. A bottle goes for $35 on Amazon. Around triple the price of a commercial alternative. For Yasuo, passing down the legacy of barrel-aged soy sauce is part of his life's mission. Juice from cashew fruit is the one ingredient in fenny, a rare liquor made only in this part of the world. This family is one of the few still-using techniques that date back to the 1500s. While some brands are pushing to bring fenny to the mainstream, these farmers are pushing to make it popular. Found a way to stay in business by hand-making small batches and selling locally. We visited Goa, India, to see how this centuries-old tradition is still standing. The Gaonkar family searches their land for fallen fruits every morning. The fruits fall when they're ripe. They use a wooden stick with a needle at the end to pick up each cashew fruit. Drupati Gaonkar is the matriarch of the 100-year-old family operation. She's been making fenny for 60 years and took over the business after her husband passed away. During fenny season, from March to April, her children and grandchildren help out. After filling around eight buckets in an hour, they take out the seeds. One by one, the family separates the cashew fruit from the cashew nut. They sell the raw cashews to factories that roast and package them. Then it's time to juice. Santosh Gaonkar puts on mining boots. The hard souls get more juice out of the fruits. He grew up helping his mother on the farm and has been doing this full-time for 25 years. Little by little, he stomps away. The family used to use a big wooden stick for this step, but they eventually found that stomping with their feet was more effective. It can get slippery, so Santosh holds on tight for balance. Juicing a full vat of cashew apples takes about an hour. And in the 100-degree heat, it can be exhausting. During breaks, they get fresh cashew fruit juice that you can't find in stores. It has a shelf life of just one day. Then Santosh piles the last bits of fruit into a mound. He wraps it with a rope and drags a few rocks on top to squeeze out every last drop of juice. They leave the fruits like this overnight. Machines would speed up this process, but it's not an option for this family. Plus, Santosh says handmade fenny tastes better. They throw away the fruit waste or give it to farmers to use as cattle feed. Bucket by bucket, they filter out any pulp fibers through a cloth. Then the juice sits to ferment for two or three days. They transfer it into a copper drum. Meanwhile, Drupati prepares to seal the drum by dousing a piece of cloth in mud. The mud comes from nearby ant hills. The ants and snakes that live in these mounds refine the soil, which makes it better for sealing the tanks. Drupati wraps the clay-covered cloth around the openings to ensure no air escapes. She lights a fire to heat the juice using wood harvested from their land. It burns for around eight hours. Steam passes through the pipe and into a tank filled with water. It cools down the vapor and a slow stream of Urak comes out the other end. Urak is a less alcoholic beverage that the family sells when there's demand. Otherwise, they put it back into the copper pot and distill it for another seven to eight hours. Once it reaches the right temperature, it's fenny, with 40 to 45 percent alcohol. They also test it by looking at the bubbles, which should be big and spread apart slowly. The family learned this through decades of experience and close observation. They make 175 liters of fenny every season and usually sell all of it to local buyers. But business today looks a little different than it used to. People in nearby villages have moved to bigger cities for work, so fewer people come by to drink fenny. The family brings in around 50,000 Indian rupees, or nearly $700 in a season. And their operation probably won't be getting any bigger, since buying more land can be expensive. The government auctions off trees to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, other fenny makers in Goa are looking to expand the market and popularize the drink. A brand called Cazulo draws in locals and tourists with a tasting room and distillery tours. Basically, when you step out from here, you are baptized into a new fenny drinker. One of the tour's big attractions is the fenny market. Workers have to dive in the water to pull out aged bottles of fenny. Cazulo gets its fenny from local farmers, who hand-make it in the traditional way, just like the Gaonkar family. Some of these methods date back to at least the 1500s, when farmers in this region used to make liquor from coconut palm sap, called toddy. Our ancestors had this thought where they said, you know what, let's innovate. Let's take an extra step ahead. You know, if we can do a distilled toddy, which has sugar, let's try distilling fruits. After the Portuguese brought cashew trees from Brazil to Goa, at some point during the 16th century, distilling cashew fenny became more common, since it was easier to produce. It's been popular throughout Goa ever since, but it hasn't been able to break out beyond state lines. Fenny comes under the country liquor category. That very notion puts you in a place saying that, you know what, it's an inferior spirit. The world outside Goa is so difficult to enter in terms of spirit. It is a great spirit with a great story and a great culture, but we've not been able to put it out. So we use chili and salt. We've been in a bubble for more than 200 years. The fenny has existed, but never spoken about, and now it's time that we come out of a bubble. For the Gaonkar family, they're not sure how much longer their business will sustain them. This is one of the oldest businesses in Japan, and aburi mochi is the only food on the menu. For over a thousand years, the restaurant has served worshippers who visit the Shinto shrine next door to pray for good health. Many believe eating the roasted rice cakes will protect them from diseases too. The shop has survived fires, civil and world wars, and even smallpox epidemics. Through it all, 25 generations of one family kept it going, blending food and faith. But COVID-19 has threatened the business more than anything else. We visited Ichimonji Iwasuke in Kyoto to see how it is still standing. It all starts with the skewers. Owner Naomi Hasagawa cuts them from a special bamboo grown for ritual purposes around the shrine. That's why they're considered sacred and treated with as much care as any ingredient. The important job of sterilizing them is only for the okami, the owner and manager. Next, she makes the sweet miso dipping sauce. Naomi knows the recipe by heart. She measures ingredients by eye and feels the mixture for consistency. She learned it all from her aunt, the former okami. She combines today's batch with yesterday's leftovers for a richer flavor. Ichiwa uses a machine to make the mochi dough instead of the traditional method of steaming and pounding with a mallet. Every day, she makes the first mochi as an offering for the gods and her ancestors. Then it's time to put it all together. Naomi and her employees work on a woven mat covered in roasted soybean powder. They cover the mochi in it, then measure thumb-sized pieces to stick on a skewer. To roast the mochi, she shuffles them until they reach a consistent dark color. It only takes about one minute, but it requires close attention since the mochi could easily overcook, or even worse, the bamboo could burn. She's even particular about the charcoal she uses. This is binchotan, a high-quality oak charcoal that's much harder than regular coals. Aburi means to roast, so this is what makes the snack aburi mochi. She dips the aburi mochi into the miso sauce while they're still warm. 11 skewers and a cup of green tea cost 500 yen, or just under $5. Naomi and her predecessor have kept that price steady for over 30 years, but have had to bring the number of skewers down from 15. The Imamiya Shrine that Ichiwa serves was founded in 994, as Kyoto was suffering from epidemics like smallpox. Locals worshipped Shinto deities who were believed to cure diseases and grant long life. Naomi says Ichiwa's original founders served the chief priest, and then started the shop to serve worshippers as well. They used to give aburi mochi away for free, and only sometimes received a small gratuity from pilgrims. From the beginning, it's been traditional for women in the family to run the business. Naomi is the 25th okami to run Ichiwa, taking over for her aunt 13 years ago. And she has made a few improvements to bring the business into the modern age. Providing insurance to its employees, and installing a time card system. But she draws the line at using delivery apps. Ichiwa Although Ichiwa was born from a time of plague, nothing could have prepared the staff for the coronavirus pandemic. The shop was forced to close for nearly two months in 2020, and it took on debt to ensure employees were still getting paid, even while it was shut. Even the government's National Tourism Incentive Program wasn't enough to bring many customers back. Naomi's hopes for the future lie in the next generation of her family. She believes her children, or nieces and nephews, will take over for her. But there's no set succession plan. And that's intentional. She says she'd enjoy retirement, but until that day, there are faithful visitors to feed. This is an ancient cooking tool, called a metate. Women in Mexico have been using it for over 7,000 years to prepare traditional dishes. Evangelina Aquino Luis spends hours grinding chilies and herbs for just one batch of mole. Mole is a thick, rich sauce that comes in many variations, contains dozens of ingredients, and can take days to cook. It's also one of the most popular dishes in Evangelina's restaurant, La Cocina Nanavira. Today, she's preparing a rare kind of mole, called chichilo. But it's not on the menu, because she only makes it for people who are in mourning. Evangelina has dedicated her life to preserving these kinds of traditions and methods. But over the years, she's watched cooks swap metates for blenders, and even turned to packaged sauces from the supermarket. We visited Oaxaca, known as the land of the seven moles, to see how the ancient ways of preparing this classic Mexican dish are still standing. Evangelina buys all ingredients fresh at a local market. Ancho chilies are a kind of dried poblano pepper that have a smoky flavor. Back at her restaurant, Evangelina preps the onions, garlic, and sesame for roasting. She's part of the Zapotec indigenous group that's lived in the Oaxaca Valley for thousands of years. When someone dies, family usually prepare chichilo together. Evangelina made this batch especially for us, to be able to show the whole process. She puts the meat to boil in a handmade pot, because the beef will take the longest to cook. In the state of Oaxaca, there are seven types of mole, and every family has their own variation on the recipes. Evangelina chars the ingredients on a clay comal, a smooth griddle to bring out the smoky flavors. The ancho chilies go first on high heat. When they get the perfect roast, she soaks them for about 30 minutes to rehydrate and soften them. Evangelina wastes no time. She roasts everything quickly, since this mole has to be made faster than other kinds to make it in time for a wake. The metate has been in Evangelina's family for 46 years. These grinding stones are carved whole out of a quarry, and they can weigh more than 50 kilos. Some commercial chefs have switched to blenders to make the process faster. But Evangelina says that hand-crushing the ingredients makes the paste smoother and helps bring out intense flavors from the spices. This is the most physically taxing step, and it can take two hours just to grind the ingredients. Indigenous groups in Mesoamerica have used the metate to make mole since the pre-Hispanic time. It's believed to have originated either here in Oaxaca or just to the north, in what's now known as the state of Puebla. The Spanish arrived in the 15th century, and people started mixing indigenous ingredients like the native chilies with other foods the Spanish brought. So today's mole is a fusion of pre-Hispanic and European cuisines. But the authentic way of making it has dwindled in popularity. Pre-made mole paste came on the market in the 1940s. Blenders became popular in the decades that followed, and they eventually replaced the metate altogether. But Evangelina says traditional mole still beats out the kind made in a blender. Lard is one of the final ingredients she adds. She melts it into a pot and adds the ground paste to fry, then beef broth and corn dough to make the mole thicker. She stirs until the sauce is the perfect consistency. Fiesta moles that are served at celebrations, like one called coloradito, have brighter and sweeter, and some even say happier, tastes. But this is a funeral mole, so it has a more subdued and muted taste. Evangelina's grandmother taught her how to cook mole when she was just 7 years old. At 20, she learned how to make chichilo mole from the women in her community. At first, making chichilo mole was a heavy task for Evangelina, because it reminded her of loss. But when she realized she had a chance to preserve and share her culinary knowledge, it took on a new meaning. In 2017, she registered the brand Nanavida, named after her grandmother. She exports her mole, as well as chocolate, to the U.S. and sells them online. And Evangelina's work is getting noticed. This year, her chichilo mole won the award for the best ceremonial dish and another for best decoration at a traditional food festival in Oaxaca. A restaurant is open for tourist groups and locals who want to eat the traditional food. She hopes her children will fall in love with cooking the same way she has. And if they do, they have her recipe. And of course, her metate.