Can local grub fortify economies?

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Municipalities around Japan are spotlighting local cuisine for ordinary people, known as "B-class gourmet" fare, in efforts to revitalize their communities.

This month, the fifth annual B-1 Grand Prix, a competition of B-class gourmet dishes from across the nation, will be held in Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture.

The race to invent low-priced dishes using tasty local specialty foods will likely heat up.

Atsugi is famous for its own B-class gourmet cuisine, "Atsugi Shirokoro Horumon" (Atsugi Shirokoro offal). The dish won the grand prize in the third event held in 2008 in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, and became well known nationwide.

About five years ago, the city's association of local shop owners considered revitalizing the city's neighborhoods with local specialty goods, hoping their city would become famous for something other than Atsugi Air Base and Atsugi Station, both of which are actually located outside the city of Atsugi.

Wanting to put a new "face" on the city, young members of the association focused on grilled pig chitterlings, which have been a popular local dish as there are major meat processing companies in the city.

In terms of preparation, citizens favor chopping up a pig's large intestine and grilling the pieces on a gridiron. The morsels are eaten with miso flavored with garlic.

The cuisine was named Shirokoro because a piece of large intestine curls up while being grilled and rolls over on the gridiron. The movement of rolling over and over is described in Japanese by the onomatopoeic term "koro koro."

About 100 restaurants in Atsugi offer Shirokoro dishes. Occasionally, busloads of tourists come to the city to taste them. Stores in the city also sell key rings in the shape of Shirokoro pieces.

In this year's event, a record 46 groups will participate--20 more than in the previous contest. The organizers expect the Sept. 18-19 event to draw 300,000 hungry spectators.

Akio Nakamura, head of the organizing committee headquarters, said, "If many people come here and understand how attractive Atsugi is, it will surely result in economic effects."

Kurume has tried to revitalize its local communities by billing itself as a city of yakitori. After a major company in the city went under in 1998, the local economy fell into the doldrums.

To get some wind back in their sails, local residents became enthusiastic about revitalizing the city with yakitori and other local B-class gourmet cuisine.

The city has about 200 yakitori restaurants frequented by employees of local factories that produce shoes and rubber products.

In 2003, before the city merged with neighboring small municipalities, a local magazine found in a survey that the number of yakitori restaurants per 10,000 population in Kurume was among the highest in the nation at 7.46.

Many of the restaurants offer yakitori of Sazanamidori, a local specialty chicken, and pieces of beef and pork large intestine. There are also onigiri rice balls containing pieces of yakitori.

In 2003, a local band released a promotional song, "Yakitori Boogie." When the city holds its annual yakitori festival in September, about 40,000 people visit from across the nation.

Noriaki Tada, administrative chief of a local association to promote yakitori as part of food culture, said, "I hope [yakitori] will become Kurume's core local business."

Tsuyama, Okayama Prefecture, is famous for "horumon udon," or udon noodles baked together with fresh cattle entrails and vegetables with a sauce made of miso and soy sauce.

As Japanese cattle breeding thrives in Tsuyama, the noodle dish has been popular for more than 50 years as a "secret menu" item available to regular customers at barbecued meat restaurants.

The dish became famous nationwide in the wake of a National Athletic Meet held in Okayama Prefecture in 2005, when Tsuyama was the venue for judo matches.

Local residents, who wanted to welcome judo athletes with local cuisine, chose the "horumon udon" dish.

Then local people, mainly officials of the city government, formed an association to promote the dish to revitalize local communities.

In 2008, the association made a map of restaurants where the horumon udon dish is available and distributed copies free of charge.

In 2009, the number of tourists visiting Tsuyama increased about 13 percent from the previous year to 630,000.

Hashino Shokudo, a local restaurant with about 120 years of history, was on the brink of closing down a few years ago. But it is now so popular that long lines form in front of it.

Hiroshi Hashino, 58, the owner of the restaurant, said, "Chatting with young people from across the nation has become the light of my life."