Shirley Booth- Sake, ceramics and Japan - GOLDMARK.TV

Welcome back to Goldmark TV and this is a very special episode because it's our 100th episode in just over a year. It's quite extraordinary. I'm not quite sure how we've managed to do it but it's thanks to Johnny, our faithful man behind the camera, that we've been able to come so far in the last year. We've looked at some really wonderful and fantastic things and we've got a bit of a different episode today to celebrate the opportunity. I'm going to be speaking today with Shirley Booth, who is a connoisseur of all things Japan and Japanese cuisine, in particular sake, and she wrote a fantastic article for us recently for our Spring Magazine, which you'll find here. It's wonderful to have you here with us today, Shirley. A writer, a filmmaker, teacher. It's extraordinary the number of things that you've been doing related to Japanese food over the last 20-30 years. Where did your journey with Japanese food begin? Well, I went to Japan after art college. I'd seen lots of Japanese art movies when I was a student and so I was kind of curious about Japan and Japanese traditional culture, although I didn't study Japanese and, you know, I was an art student. But anyway, when I got there, I just fell in love with it and ate lots of Japanese food and drank some not terribly good sake at that time. But when I came back to England, after having been there for three years, I wanted to go back to make a documentary which showed how I felt about Japan and something of the kind of traditional culture. And I found that food was the kind of best route to understanding some of the Japanese heart, really. So I started studying Japanese food a little bit. I studied at a temple with an abbess and that was wonderful. And we filmed there and I studied with her as well. And that's really how it all began. So this is the documentary, Food for the Spirit. You very kindly lent us a copy and I've watched it recently. And that environment around the temple is absolutely beautiful. And I hadn't realised, I guess it must be true of many different countries, but I hadn't realised quite how embedded Japanese food is with its religious, its spiritual world, with the history of Zen Buddhism, really. Yeah. Well, I mean, I suppose one of the things you've got to understand about Japanese cuisine is that one of the kind of defining characteristics is that the role of the chef isn't sort of to invent flavours and to put flavours together. The role of the chef is to bring out the natural taste of the ingredients, the flavour that God gave it, really. Freshness is therefore paramount. And so if you're using fresh foods, then you're going to use seasonal foods and you're going to be very much aware of nature and what's around you. So all that is very much linked, I think. And then obviously the seasonality in Japanese cuisine is evident in the arrangement of the foods. So in autumn, you'll have little autumn leaf decoration. And there was this wonderful thing that they actually had with the abbess that I studied with. She was making, it was autumn, and she was making little things called pine cones, which was made from tofu. You might remember that from the film. And she sprinkled them with real pine needles to decorate them. But the other thing I saw another high class chef do was make little fake pine needles from two pieces of noodle, soba noodle, buckwheat noodle, fastened at the bottom with a little piece of nori seaweed. And so they're basically edible, you know, pine needles. But that's the kind of thing that they do. And I think also you saw in the film, how the department stores are all decorated with maple leaves in autumn and spring blossoms in, cherry blossoms in spring. So there's always a kind of a celebration of what season, what season it is, and also using the foods that are available in that season. So if you're very aware of the season, then in a way you're very aware of God or nature or the spirits. So that's one of the reasons I think that it's so very apparent in Japanese cuisine. Yeah, there's that lovely sequence with the abbess plating up those pine cones, I think, and she's got the leaves that she's rifling through to pick the best one. And it's the one at the bottom with the hole through it. No, isn't it lovely? Yeah, that's sort of imperfect. Very wabi-sabi. No, I love that. I always use that as a kind of an explanation when I'm trying to explain that kind of subtleness and the Japanese appreciation of sort of imperfection, really. And also the fact that she chooses one with the hole in it, but then she puts the food on top of it. So you can't see the hole. So again, there's that kind of hidden and revealing. And I've got a cup here, actually, the Mashiko cup. We'll come to Mashiko later, I'm sure. But I think this also is a very kind of Japanese idea. This cup, as you can see, it's kind of black, but inside is where the pattern is. So to me, that's just so Japanese. It's like having those kimonos that are plain on the outside, and then you open it and there's a pattern inside. So that's that hidden beauty. Yeah, it was amazing watching this documentary and also going through your book, which is fantastic. And if anybody doesn't have a copy, please do go and find one if you can. It's lovely because it's both a recipe book, a cookery book, but there's also your sort of reminiscences of living there and cooking in Japan. And that's what's a lovely, gives you a wonderful window, actually, into these different things and the different acquired tastes. And there was something that you wrote, I think, about natto. Oh, yeah, I love it. The sort of very, very smelly fermented food, which is a kind of this, yeah, acquired. But one of the things that really struck me about this and about the film was how many similarities there are between the way that Japanese people have approached their ceramics and their food. And that whole, that line, that beautiful line about the best, something like the best kind of cooking is the least cooking. Yes, yes. It's very reminiscent of the sort of potters in Bizen, for example, where it's all unglazed clay. It's all about managing and sort of flattering your materials rather than trying to sort of control them and overshadow them with these other things. Exactly. Yeah, it's exactly the same thing. That kind of respect for what nature has given us, really. And I mean, you see that a lot in, I haven't got any examples here, but with sometimes the things they do with bamboo as well, very simple material. But, you know, they will make a cup just from bamboo and you haven't done anything to it really, except just cut it. And then those little kind of scrapers that they, like a little brush that they use to scrape a grater. And it's just made from a piece of bamboo cut into very fine points, like a little brush. And that's just that, what's God given us? Ah, what can we do with it? Okay, we'll just do this. And as if, and I think there's another line in my film about, as if the hand of man never intervened. And, you know, that is, well, that's studio pottery, isn't it? Japanese pottery for you. Yeah. I've got a lovely plate here, actually. This is one of my favourite ones. And I love this because it's just like a slab of clay, really. And I would use that probably for plating up maybe some mushrooms to give an impression of where they came from, from the ground. So, you know, that's also that link between the and the way you plate them up. When you learnt with the Abess, how much of it was it about that kind of, that presentation, that kind of offering of food? Because there's another bit in the documentary about maybe pairing squared foods with circular plates and with rounded foods with square plates. Yes. How much of that came into what you were learning? Well, on the one hand, the nuns and the monks, they use quite plain dishes. Certainly, in my experience, they use quite a lot of red lacquer, but not quite so much of the studio pots. But it depends which temple that you're at, really. But I mean, I think the most important thing for food presentation is that you avoid symmetry. It's always asymmetrical. So it's like just scattered. And the other thing that the Japanese food presentation, when you put the food on the plate, I've got another bowl here, and you heap it in the middle. So the word for food presentation is moritsuke, which means to heap. So the idea is that you heap the food. And you may have seen this in sushi restaurants, when the food is laid out on a plate, and it's all in kind of like little piles, but with the taller food at the back and smaller food at the front. So it's supposed to kind of reproduce natural features of the landscape, so like mountains and rivers and valleys and things. So that's how they present their food. So you wouldn't put, you know how French chefs all have it all kind of like dotted around very geometrically and symmetrically. They never do that. So it's really fun to do, actually. Yeah, it was interesting seeing, occasionally you see now in particularly in sort of cookery shows in the UK, where you've got high class chefs paired against each other or pairing off against each other or plating up sort of a very kind of formal meals. And often, these chefs getting out their metal chopsticks to plate things up. Oh, do they? Little sort of very delicate things. And there's lots of very carefully making sure this little bit of cress is exactly on this place, comparing that to sort of the high class chefs in your film, plating things up. And I think there's a few occasions where a few pine needles drop off, or he's trying to place them on top and they just fall off. And it's just, there's a kind of, there's a lovely letting things just happen. Yes, yeah. And it's kind of pairs funnily with the artifice of the cutting the cucumbers very, very exactly so that it has this wonderful appearance of a pine cone. That's lovely that, isn't it? Yeah, the turnip is the chrysanthemum, that sort of thing. It's amazing that combination of very, very exacting skill, very meticulous, but also letting things be, which is, I guess, yeah. Well, to a certain extent, I think probably there's a little bit of fiddling. There's quite some fiddling with chopsticks as well. But the idea is to make it look as if it's just happened naturally. Yeah. Say something about food and pots, actually. When I was talking about the food arrangement, you never fill the plate. That's the other thing. The space around the food is just as important as the arrangement of the food itself. I remember once I was cooking with a, doing Japanese style lunches, a microbiotic center with this American woman. And we went to get the plates to plate up the food. And she chose a smaller plate so that food would all be, you know, like piled up. And I went, oh, no, no, no, no. I said, I'm gonna have a bigger plate. And she said, oh, no. She said, well, I like it. I like it, you know, falling off the plate. It looks so abundant. And I thought, how interesting. Because to me, having smaller pieces with the space around, it doesn't look mean. It looks like more respectful. And to me, it shows that you really appreciate the food and that mindfulness, isn't it? It's eating with mindfulness. And I thought that was really interesting, that difference. It's almost like a stage, isn't it? You have a single stage and they have that kind of, they can capture that kind of space. Yes. Yeah. Well, actually, I think also that's one of the reasons people are always wondering why the Japanese are always so healthy and slim. And, you know, there are theories that they don't eat animal fat and all these other things. But I think it's, A, because they don't eat that much. Because, you know, they're not gluttons. Their portions are small. And also, they take notice of their food. They revere it. So, actually, that's one of the things, actually, I really noticed in Japan, is that when you go out for a meal with Japanese people, if they talk, they'll talk about the food. So, oh, this is, you know, this fish is really beautiful, nice season for it, you know, that kind of thing. Or I wonder where these were foraged from and that kind of thing. So, they'll talk about the food. So, their focus is on the food. There's a real kind of mindfulness about it. They're not sort of waving chopsticks around and talking about other things. That's the difference, I think. And that's why I think they're healthy. Yeah. I hadn't realised until seeing your documentary that meat-eating was not prevalent, that it was something that was brought in, almost. And as well as things like tempura, that the story was from that. It was brought from Portuguese sailors, yeah. Yes. How did that come from elsewhere? Well, that's, you know, because the Japanese cuisine is really based on, you know, the geography and the religion. So, geography-wise, there isn't much land for grazing cattle. So, but obviously, fish is a big thing. And then, you know, mainly, Japan's mainly mountains. So, cattle was never a big thing in Japan, but also religion. So, Buddhism forbid the eating of any sentient being. So, it was basically vegetarian. And they're the two big factors that have influenced the cuisine until, you know, 1868, when the Americans arrived and everything changed. But even then, when they did start eating meat, it was only ever in small quantities, partly because it was expensive, but also because of the whole business of the style. So, they wouldn't have a joint of meat because they didn't have ovens. So, all those different things affect their cuisine, which is why food is such an interesting way of understanding a culture. Absolutely, yeah. Because you spent a number of years living there in Japan as well as filming. Yes, yeah. Did you get a sense of, it always strikes me that Japan and Britain have a, they're both very similar and worlds apart at the same time. Yes. We've both kind of got that slightly sort of traditional conservative strain within us of trying to keep these things alive. And it feels like Japan has tended to do that much more than we have. Did you get a feeling for younger people breaking away from that? Or is there still a very strong feeling of trying to keep those traditional ways of cooking, those traditional things alive? Both, both really. Young people are young people everywhere. They always want to break away. And in fact, actually, they hold, I know you wanted to come to sake later, but this is kind of relevant because the whole business of why I set up the British Sake Association is, I mean, when I was first in Japan, I used to just drink kind of regular, ordinary old sake. And people did drink that. But then towards the, as the years went on, sort of 1980s, I suppose, sake became much less, much less popular in Japan. And younger people were, you know, keen on Western things, beer and wine. And sake was seen as kind of granddad's drink, like the kind of cider industry here, really. So there has been a big decline in the number of sake brewers in Japan. And that's one of the reasons why the brewers have been sort of trying to export more to kind of get the overseas market. And I thought, as many others did, if the, if Westerners started to appreciate sake, then maybe younger Japanese would then take another look at their traditional culture and think, ooh, this is something that we've got that's unique. And actually that is what happened. So there has been a slight increase in the popularity of premium sake in Japan. And there's also, there has been an increase in the awareness of traditional Japanese culture. But when I say there has been, I mean, in the last sort of 10 years. So when I was first there, it wasn't so much. Younger people were quite keen to get away from traditional Japan, really. But, you know, not so much that it's died, luckily. So, and there's lots of young people now interested in traditional Japan and wanting to promote it. That's fascinating because one of the things that struck me, when we were working on this article together, which you very kindly helped do, you put me in touch with Oliver at Tengu Sake. We bought some sake bottles and we got to taste them ourselves as we set this up. One of the things that really struck me about the different bottles that we tried was how they all sort of filled the divide between things like wine, beer, stronger spirits, that a lot of the tastes and things were there. It was almost like the difference between these sort of very clear and light sake that was much more like a kind of sherry versus one which we'll come on to later, which is much easier, much more umami, much more, almost like a kind of whiskey or a brandy. It's interesting to see how sake kind of slips into that divide between lots of these other drinks. Well, I mean, I think that's one of the surprising things about sake, certainly, actually for Japanese as well as for Westerners, is that they don't realise how many different styles there are. I mean, we chose those styles specifically for you because we wanted you to have quite a broad cross-section in four bottles, which I think we successfully did. Yeah, you're right. I mean, the Red Ox is fantastic as an aperitif or as a digestif at the end. And then the Nigori is good with the desserts. And yeah, it's great. And also you've got that whole temperature thing as well going on. What did you find most difficult adapting to Japanese cuisine and to Japanese cooking as well? One of the things I noticed in the book was how, I think in the introductory passages, you talked about how there are sort of standard sets of ways of doing things. So there are five colours of food, I'd expect, and then the six tastes, possibly seven tastes if you're counting umami in there. One of the things I noticed was there seems to be very little roasting and baking, which is sort of very much traditional here, you know, your pies and your roast dinners and that sort of thing. How difficult was it sort of adapting to this different way of cooking? Well, I mean, in a way it's not difficult because when you're there, that's what people do. So for example, my kitchen didn't have an oven. And also, if I went to the shops, I couldn't buy a roast, a joint of beef, it just wasn't happening. And I mean, I cooked in my little house on two gas rings, which is at that time, this is what most people had. And they did most it under a rice cooker. And most people managed to put together all sorts of lovely dinners on just those two things. But the other advantage of Japanese cooking is that most things are served at room temperature. So you can do quite a lot of things ahead. So you haven't got, you know, six saucepans on the go all at once. I mean, I suppose, I don't know, it was easy for me, really. I didn't find it difficult at all. But then, you know, my husband thinks I had a previous incarnation as a Japanese girl. But it's kind of common sense in a way. I mean, the abbess told me about, you know, the five colours, the five tastes and the five cooking methods. So each meal is a balance of those five different things. And I've got a place setting here. So a meal is composed of lots of little different dishes, each in one cooking method. So you wouldn't replicate a cooking method. So for example, like fish and chips is both deep fried. So in a Japanese meal, you'd have one deep fried thing, and maybe one simmered thing, maybe one vinegar thing, and one dress thing like a salad. And each of those has their own bowl or dish. The top right hand corner is a kind of flat plate, which is for grilled or deep fried dishes. So you might put some tempura on there or a piece grilled fish. And the rice is always on the left. And the miso soup is in the lacquered bowl on the right. And the reason it's in the lacquered bowl is because you lift it to your mouth. You don't use a spoon. So you lift the bowl to your mouth. And obviously, if it's a ceramic bowl, it's going to be too hot. So lacquer is perfect. And the lid keeps the aroma and the flavours of the soup in. So that's really how a Japanese meal is composed. And to me, it kind of makes sense. So you wouldn't have lots of deep fried things or lots of simmered things, you just have one little bit of each. And the other important thing is that the rice actually is considered, it's not like a side dish like potatoes in the West. Rice is considered the main dish in a Japanese meal. So when a Japanese housewife calls her family, she'll say, gohan desu yo, means the rice is ready, which means the meal is ready. So I think that's quite universal, actually. But so the right rice is the main dish. And it's in a way, somebody once said that rice is the kind of destination. So in a traditional formal meal, you would have the rice and the pickles at the end of the meal. So you have all the little tidbits first, and then you have the rice at the end, because that's the kind of sacred dish. But the other thing is that you would start a meal with two things. You may start with sashimi, raw fish. And one of the reasons for that is obviously because your palate is clear, and you need to have the kind of clear, clean taste of the fish. But also the kind of test of a chef is his kind of ability to choose fresh, good ingredients. So if the fresh, if the, you know, sashimi is good, then you know that the rest of the meal is going to be good as well. And by the same token, you would have a clear soup at the beginning of the meal. And the clear soup is made from dashi, which is the kind of basic stock made from seaweeds and dried fishes. And that's the basic stock dashi, which is used throughout all the cooking methods. So you would have a clear soup at the beginning of the meal. And if that's good, then you know the rest of the meal is going to be good too. So, and again, it's that kind of clear, clean flavors at the beginning. It seems to be a theme going through. And also, when things are cooked, it often feels like processes where it's not so much controlling what's going on and sort of manipulating as letting flavors come out. Watching people making dashi or lots of the fermented food, it's that same kind of principle, isn't it? Yes. Yes. Letting them do their, do their business. Yes. So as I said, the role of the chef, and you mentioned is to just bring out the natural taste of the ingredients. And the, you mentioned umami. So I don't know how many of the people watching this know what umami is, but it's the, it's sometimes called the fifth taste and it's, it's a function or a result actually of glutamates in food. So glutamates or amino acids in food are the things that make food tasty. They kind of enhance the natural flavor of whatever you're eating. So that's why dashi, which is made with the seaweed and sometimes shiitake mushrooms and the dried fish, they're all high in glutamic acids or amino acids. And that's why they're used to bring out the taste of the other things that you're cooking it with. So the umami, sorry, dashi, the stock, doesn't add flavor. It extracts flavor. And actually sake does the same thing. Yeah. Which is why it's in food. There was another taste I think mentioned in the book. I think it was, is it ayai? Away. Away. Yeah. Delicateness. Yeah. It's funny. These are both, both things which I'm sure people could identify, but we don't seem to have the same terminology for. No, no. You can kind of taste it. I mean, it's not a taste. It's almost like a kind of a feeling really. Yeah. Kind of fleetingness of something that's very light. You might get it from a nice ceramic bowl indeed. Umami and rice then sort of brings us on to sake, which is something that we've been interested in recently. So did your first sort of experiences with sake come from drinking in Japan with people you were living with? Yeah. Yes. In bars basically. Because that's what you do. Drinking is something you have to do to get to know people. And it's great. But the really interesting thing about drunk, I'll talk about drunkenness a little bit, but I never saw an aggressive drunk in Japan. I saw quite a lot of drunk blokes, you know, certainly on the station in the evenings, but they were never aggressive. They're always just kind of silly or falling around. And I don't know, I think that's, I don't know if it's a function of what they were drinking or just the Japanese character, but... It's funny how it does feel like a very different, it's a drinking culture that we also have here, but it does feel very different. Yes. Bars of white collar businessmen over the course of an evening. It seems very, we do kind of have that here. We have that kind of attitude of people going to the pub after work, it does seem very, and again, I don't know if that's just a case of appearance and this being something that seems more foreign than it is, but it does seem like a different kind of culture of drinking. No, I agree. Well, I mean, I think, I mean, a lot of kind of people in the sake world will tell you that that's a function of sake, that it's actually a happy drink, you know, and it might make you a bit silly, but it makes you happy and also engenders conviviality. Yes, yeah. As indeed, the little cups do. Yes, yeah. Because I think I mentioned that in the article, didn't I, about why people use small cups. Yes, you've got to keep refilling. Yeah, you've got to keep refilling for each other, and so then you've more chance to kind of interact with each other, because you remember the Japanese find it quite difficult to interact with each other, that, you know, they're, like you said, they're a kind of quite, you know, restrained and formal people. Yes. You know, not like the Spanish and the Italians who are all, you know, wild and happy and open. So, they need something to help them get close to each other, and sake is the thing that they use. Clever them. Let's talk about sake from the start then. So, like rice, it has that kind of connotations with the sort of spiritual world and something that's kind of reverential. I think you mentioned in your piece that it's probably one of those sorts of things, it has that air of mystery about it, as many fermented foods do, of possibly being something that was sort of discovered by accident. But what's the, has it always been that convivial drink, or has it, is that something that's developed over time, do you think? Oh, no, I think it always has been. Yeah. I mean, it's two things. It's a convivial drink, but also it's a kind of a sacred drink. So, those two things, in a way, sort of go together. Yeah. Could you tell us a little bit about how sake is made, the sort of the basic process? It's quite complicated. So, I'll try and keep it simple. It's made from rice, and the rice is polished, or possibly not, before it's made into sake. But the rice is then, steamed rice, is then divided up. And about 20% of the steamed rice is used to make koji. And koji is rice covered in a mold, aspergillus oryzae mold. And that's the agent that creates, that you use to make miso, and soy sauce, and sake. So, then the koji, the mold-covered rice, is mixed with the steamed rice, and water, and yeast. And they're all put in a vat together to do their thing. And that's what makes it utterly unique, because the koji converts the starch in the rice into sugars, and the yeast converts the sugar into alcohol. But all that happens at the same time in one tank, whereas in beer, it would be a two-step process, or several-step process. And it's also why what makes sake making so complicated and so difficult, because you've got to make sure that these processes don't overwhelm each other, that there's not too much sugar, and there's not too much yeast at any one time. So, that's why it's the skill of the brewer that determines how this happens. And this is why terroir is less important in sake making than in wine making. So, in wine making, you know, 80% of the work is done when you walk into the winery, because the grapes have been grown. And how the grapes are grown, and all the rest of it, determines the style of the wine. But the style of sake is determined inside the brewery by the master brewer, the toji. So, is that enough? It's those fantastic images of people stirring the vats, these enormous vats in that very humid environment. I think you were saying 40 degrees, something like that. Yes, you know, that's the koji room, you see. So, the koji has to be at a particular temperature to grow. If it's too hot, then it will die. But if it's not hot enough, then, you know, it won't grow either. So, the koji room is where they're all stripped to the waist. No women allowed. And that goes on for a couple of days, making the koji. And then the great big vats, where they're mixing the mash. Well, that's a kind of very old-fashioned image. It kind of doesn't really happen like that generally anymore, except for a few breweries that do stick to these old-fashioned methods. And when did you decide to start the British Sake Association? When did that kind of appreciation turn into something more? That was about, what, 2008, 2006. 2006, I think, we had our first kind of London sake fair. But it was a result of me looking at what was happening in Japan and understanding how important sake was in Japanese culture. And, you know, I'd grown up in Japan with sake, and it was, you know, I couldn't bear the idea that this industry was going to die. So, I set up the association here to try and get people over here interested in it. And, you know, several other people did the same thing around the same time. I think the International Wine Challenge started putting sake on its kind of, you know, competitions. And then there's the Sake Samurai was set up, which is another bunch of people here. And so it all kind of came together around 2006. And then I think Ollie at Tengu Sake started about eight years ago, I think. And he's done terrifically well, because he, as well as just selling sake, he explains all this stuff that I'm desperately trying to explain now. No, it is one of those, I think people tend to, because they understand that there are many apparently esoteric elements to Japanese culture and Japanese cuisine. And particularly people who know us will know of the tea ceremony. So it's a kind of instant feeling of, oh, this is something very rarefied. And there's all sorts of rules and things, actually having some of those terms explained. And they are in this article, they are fantastically delineated. It's about as good an introduction from start to finish for a history of sake and what you need to know. But having that explained very, very clearly, it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. And it's amazing how something that seems quite difficult and a bit strange, actually, the minute you can get past that feeling, it's wonderful. And I know one of the things that you've tried to make clear is that to enjoy sake, you don't have to enjoy it with Japanese food necessarily, that it's a drink that's going to taste down lots of different things. Oh, very much so, actually. I think probably that's one of the kind of big developments, really, in the whole sake industry, certainly over here, is understanding that it goes really well with other cuisines. And that's because of this umami factor. Because it's got this umami factor, then it actually matches with lots of different foods. And also, it can be drunk at so many different temperatures. So, you know, there's no other drink that you can have chilled or room temperature or even warmed. So, I mean, as I said in the article, obviously, you know all this, but they refined the Dai Ginjozu and the Ginjozu, you wouldn't want those, but you want those chilled. And then the, but the others, the Honjozu, you could have any different temperature according to what you're drinking it with. And that is unique, you know, it's lovely. Yeah. And it's fascinating how much that flavour changes once you do that with the sort of acidity that you lose as you start to heat it up and these very rounded kind of flavours coming out. Yeah, it's fascinating. Even for someone like a layman like me, that just that very simple process, you start to realise, oh, there's lots more going on here. Yes, yeah, yeah. And that's what's so nice about it is that actually, in a way, you don't really need to know anything, you just do it. So, just buy yourself a bottle and then try it at different temperatures and see what happens. And even if you warmed a Dai Ginjo, which obviously I wouldn't recommend, but if you did, then you'd find out why I don't recommend it, you see. So, that's the way to do it. And also, you know, buy yourself a bottle and try it with lots of different foods and see what happens. I thought we could talk a little bit about the pots in your home. Because one of the things that we've seen over the last, I guess, 10, 20 years, is the number of potters here in the UK and elsewhere in America, Australia, taking up not just the sort of broader ceramics forms of Japanese ceramics, but also, in particular, Goinomi, little sake cups. And this was part of what we explored with the article that we put together, was trying to maybe pair up different potters and their work and the sort of qualities of their work with the qualities of these different sake bottles. I think we did quite well, don't you? I think we did pretty well, yeah. Now, you've informed me that you have rather a large number of pots in your home. I have. Well, yes. Well, okay, I'm going to start with, this is one of my favourite ones. This is a Bajōhei. Right. Bajōhei, meaning horseback cup. So, bat is horse and hei is cup. But Bajōhei, and this is a horseback cup. So, this is for when you're on horseback as a samurai warrior, then you've got the horse holding the reins and you've got your cup here. So, it's quite a macho image. But this one was given to me back in 1978 by the potter in Mashiko, a potter called Jinnai Sakata. And actually, I now realise, looking him up on Google, I realise he's quite a well-known potter now and he's got work in the British Museum. And I think you can see here, it's almost like a kind of a medieval style pot. So, I don't use this very often because I don't want to break it, but I do use it sometimes for a very special sake. Mashiko, well known for pots, but you've spoken about how there's at least one major sake brewery. Oh, yes. Sanran, yeah, it's a brewery in Mashiko. And the president, Mr. Tonoike, he's an associate member of the British Sake Association. So, he's been very helpful to us. And he donated one of those big sake barrels that we can use on ceremonial occasions. So, he gave us that. And we've had tastings of his sake. I hope that we'll be having some more at some point as well, when he can start exporting again. Mashiko, Mashiko. Which other Mashiko? Oh, no, this isn't. Actually, this isn't Mashiko. This is Morioka-san, Morioka Mitsuo. And I bought this in Nagano, in Suwa. And this is a, what we call a katakuchi. So, it's a little pouring cup with a little lip. And so, again, I use that for, you can decant sake and then pour it at the table. If you've got one of those big 1.8 liter bottles, you won't want to bring that to the table. So, you decant into a katakuchi. Talking of lipped bowls, you know this style of lip where you've got the rim? Yeah. This is a classic Japanese style. This is a Mashiko one. This is a classic Japanese style, but hardly any potters here do that. They make their pots like that, don't they? Where's my, oh, here we are. So, this is another Mashiko. This is a big one. Another Mashiko one. Not for sake, this one. Not unless you're feeling very thirsty. Unless you're feeling very thirsty. And then this is a Sven. Sven Beyer. So, he's the only potter I've found here who does the continuous rim with a spout. Interesting. So, can you persuade some of your potters to make some? I will do. I certainly will do. Just drop it, shall we? Oh, actually, talking of Sven, this is something I've found. Bridport is marvellous for buying things in bric-a-brac shops. This is a mug which I found, and it's from Petroxter in Cornwall. Okay. And it says 1952 to 1977. So, it was made to celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee, right? And inside it was this little piece of paper that says, to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Petroxter Parish Council commissioned 150 commemorative mugs from Sven Beyer, Danish potter at Duckpool Sheepwash. They were designed by him and made from a mixture of clays, including some from the Petroxter Basin. Isn't it fantastic? What a find. I would not have paired that with Sven. I wouldn't have put the two together. That's fantastic. Well, no, nor would I. So, I'm extremely grateful that this was inside. Oh, I suppose he remembers making them. Yeah. Wonderful little find, that. Again, that goes up on my shelf. That's an idea. Talking sake cups, which we weren't just then, this is a traditional, this is a tasting cup, which they use for competitions. Actually, the actual competition one is bigger than this, but the point is it's got this blue circle in the bottom. And that is to help you to understand the clarity and the colour of the sake in competitions. So, if you say, oh, you know the British Sake Association logo? Yeah, that's where it comes from. Yeah, and quite a lot of sake organisations will have a similar kind of logo, and that's where it comes from. So, and then we actually, we commissioned a potter to make one for us, a local potter, and he did a studio pottery pot with the circle in the bottom. Just in the four bottles that we selected for this article, we had one cloudy sake and another, which I'll show in just a second, was a very different colour to what you might expect. I guess, again, that shows that kind of variety that you can get in sake that people might not be aware of. Yes, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I'm going to open a sparkling one later, but unfortunately, I'm going to have to drink that from a glass, but I don't mind a glass now and again. Now, there are a couple of different types of cups when you're drinking sake. I know a lot of the potters that we work with make guinomi, but there are also choco, which I think you said are smaller. I haven't got a choco in front of me. This is almost like a choco, very small, and it's for kind of delicate feminine sips for kind of more formal occasions. But then the guinomi are the ones that our Western potters have embraced, and these are kind of more of a masculine cup, and that's because guinomi means kind of to gulp. So this is like a gulping cup or a swill down cup. So that's the guinomi as opposed to the delicate choco. Very, it's miles apart from the tea ceremony, I suppose, from that kind of very masculine. Yes, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tea ceremony is very refined. Not samurai warriors on horseback. It is our 100th episode. Shall we drink some sake? Oh, shall we? Yes. Now, unfortunately, well, not unfortunately, but I happen to have a bottle of sparkling sake here. Yes, which I hadn't noticed it. No, you didn't. So now this isn't, actually, this, interestingly, this sort of goes with what we're talking about, is like moving into something different and new. Sparkling sake was never a traditional thing, but some brewers have started to develop it, partly because it's really popular, certainly overseas, and it's popular with kind of like young women in Japan. It's a bit of a ladies drink. And when you look at the label and discover that it's only 8% alcohol, then you know why. Right, okay. It's normally 18, 19%, something like that? Something, yes, between 16 and 18, yeah. But your Redux isn't, is it? No, it's not. Your Redux, yeah. Are we going to come to that later? No, I'm going to pour myself a glass now, if that's okay. Oh, I knew, you lucky thing. So this is one of the four bottles that we sourced for this article. And you and Ollie picked it out, partly because it was reflective of some of the pots that we had available. We had some of these very dark meath clay pots from Nick Collins, but also we've just had our Akiko Hirai exhibition, lots of quite pale work, but often with sort of textured surface. And you picked this one out for us because this is a much older start, well, an older way of making sake, I think. Is that right? Yes, yeah, yeah. And the result is, it's a sake that's much, it feels a bit sort of heavy, a bit sort of silkier. And it's, the only way I can describe it really is, I quite like whiskey, but you can't drink an awful lot of whiskey before you're not really tasting anything anymore, you're elsewhere. What's lovely about this is it has a little bit of the kind of, the bite, a little bit of the kind of roughness that the whiskey has. And it's got a riciness, hasn't it? Yes, and it's kind of, it's very rich. It's lovely with, I've had it with smoked nuts and chocolate, and it's lovely with smoked meat as well. But I'm going to pour a glass in just a second. I've got some lovely sake cups here, but I've also got a clear glass here. It's just a normal shot glass. The people at home can see the colour of this sake because it's really- Now, the brewery that makes that, Konishi, that's the oldest brewery in Japan, still run by the same family, by the way. It's been going since 1550. Wow. So that's the other thing about the sake business, is a lot of these breweries are run by kind of small families who've been in the business for generations. And that was one of the things that kind of propelled me to want to help keep them going, really. So I've just poured this glass, and I don't know if you can see, but the colour on that- Yeah. It's almost the same as the whiskey, actually. It's got this lovely golden kind of colour to it. I've really enjoyed this. It's been- Good. For someone who has no idea about sake, who has never ventured into it before, it's been a lovely introduction. I mean, the thing is, in a way, it's not a typical introduction. No, not at all. If you like it, that's fine. Now, I don't know what's going to happen to this bottle. Not much. I mean, I have to be honest here. Sparkling sake isn't my favourite tipple. Ollie does quite a nice one, actually. Some of them are too sweet. So this is Sight Unseen, I think you were telling me. It is a bit, yes. Sight Unseen. And that's quite a lot of sake, but on the other hand, it's only 8%. And it's your 100th anniversary. It is. So, kanpai! Kanpai. And would you normally, would you make a toast, maybe, if you were having sake? Kanpai. Oh, you don't know that? I'm going to toast Johnny, our filmmaker, who is absolutely- Oh, indeed. Yes. But his work has been fantastic. We've had him virtually chained to the desk for the last year. So this is for Johnny. We'll keep him a drop of that for when he's finished. I will, too. Oh, that's quite good. Nice. It tastes like sake. Which is what you hoped for, I guess. Well, there's sometimes, yeah. Yeah, this is lovely. And because it's, because it's at that kind of, I can't remember what the percentage is on this, actually. 17.8. So, actually, it does fall into that divide between, you know, something much stronger like a whiskey and- Also sherry. Sherry flavour, isn't it? Sherry and strength. Yeah. No, it's lovely. Well, Shirley, thank you for everything that you've helped us with, with this episode, for giving us a little insight into Japan. Where can we find your various outlets, British Sake Association? Yeah, the British Sake Association, well, we have a website. And, I mean, until this whole pandemic business, we were having about five or six different events a year, usually in London, but sometimes we've had some down here in Dorset. So let's hope that we get back to doing real live events. You know, we used to have a Christmas party every year, and then a kind of annual autumn dinner, and then tastings throughout the year. Sometimes we'd have a theme, like one of the best ones we did was sake at different temperatures. And so we had about four different sake each served at, oh no, I think five different sake served at three different temperatures. So logistically, it was quite hard to do, but it was really interesting. Or we'll just introduce the sakes of a brewery. So if a brewery's got some new lines that they want to introduce, so we do that. But it's always very good fun and entertaining and informative and educational. So yeah, get in touch with us on the British Sake Association site. And food-wise, well, watch this space. And if you could, for anybody out there who wants to give it a try, yes, apart from the fantastic article in here, which you should get a copy if you haven't, what could you recommend a sake to start with? Maybe people could dive in. A sake to start with? A sake, yeah. Or a couple, I suppose. The, well, it depends how much money you want to spend. Right. That's the other thing. If you, you could go for a Honjozo, which is the kind of, the reason I recommend that is because it's not as expensive as the Dai Ginjo's, more reasonably priced, and also it's more versatile. So you could try the Honjozo at three or four different temperatures, and none of them will be horrible. So you wouldn't be wasting your money. So yeah, definitely go for a Honjozo. And then you really need to try, if you can afford it, you need to try a good Ginjo. Because the revelation of the fruity floral flavours that you get from rice is incredible. I mean, you know, so many people, when they've taken their first sip of a Ginjo, they go, what? But it's made from rice. How come it's so fruity? But you have to taste it to believe it, really. Can I recommend a couple of books? Absolutely, yes. Anthony Rose, who, if you're a wine person, you may have heard of him, because he used to be the wine writer for The Independent. But anyway, he's become completely obsessed by sake. And we did, actually, we did an event with Anthony, and he did a kind of wine and sake comparison, which was very interesting. But he's written this book, Sake and the Wines of Japan, which is very readable for English people, because he's written it from that perspective. And also, then there's Philip Harper's Insiders Guide to Sake. But Philip Harper's an interesting chap, because he's in Japan, and he's a brewer. He's the only non-Japanese to become a master brewer. So, and he makes fantastic sake. So, this is the Insiders Guide, and it's very entertainingly written. So, this talks about the different styles and things. But if you're going to Japan, then this is also quite good, because it tells you about where to go to drink it. You know, he mentioned some of the bars that I used to go to, which is quite nice. And then John Gauntner is the other expert on sake. And he's American, and he lives in Japan. And he's the kind of real guru of sake education. So, he runs courses and teaches people. And there are several books that he has written, which will help guide you through. I think that'll do for the moment. Well, thank you for everything today. Thank you for bringing Japan to us at a time when we can't go and visit Japan ourselves. Yes, indeed. And we hope to see you again here at the Gallery sometime soon. I'm sure there's plenty more to come from you. I hope so. I mean, pots is just, you know, pots in Japan. Pots and Japanese food. Pots and sake is, you know, they're wonderful. Well, thank you. And thank you, everybody, for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Something that you've maybe not explored before, but a real insight, I think. And we're very thankful to Shirley for everything that she's brought to us. We hope to both see you all again soon. Thank you, Max. Cheers. Thank you. I've got to finish this bottle now.