Tokachi Wheat Bread: A dream handed down over generations

Domestic wheat 101

Mornings start early at the bakery. This was apparent when I went to hear about the “Baking Tokachi Bread” committee, which, as the name might suggest, was created to advance the mission that began with Kenji Sugiyama. I visited Tokachi’s oldest bakery, Asahiya, in Memurocho, at 2pm. Despite having been preparing bread for more than half a day already, Masayoshi Nakajima, the manager of Asahiya, and Shinji Amakata, the director of Masuya, another well-known bakery, greeted me warmly and showed no signs of fatigue. The first thing I wanted to know was how – to a layman, at least – could it be so hard to make bread from domestic wheat?

“First of all, 95% of the wheat used for bread today, comes from abroad”, started Masayoshi, who also serves as the current chairman of the “Baking Tokachi Bread” committee. There is a long history of importing foreign wheat, with the practice having started after the war. It is said that some elderly people still refer to wheat flour as “Meriken powder”, a bastardization of ’American’. “We also grow a lot of wheat in Japan, but most of it is used for Udon, traditional noodles. It’s so-called weak flour, or sometimes medium flour, but the best flour for bread-making is strong flour. Wheat for Udon has relatively little protein, compared to the stuff that’s used for bread. Of course I can make bread with weak flour, but unfortunately I don’t think you’d find it all that delicous, either”.

Supply: the biggest challenge

According to Shinji, from the Masuya bakery, the flour currently used for all the bread dough in the shop is all from Tokachi, and so is the milk, butter, other dairy products, eggs, red beans and yeast. Even the water used is from Tokachi. So the local area provides almost everything they needed; except for the single critical ingredient: the flour.

“For example, Kitanokaori from domestic wheat is nicely yellowish, and has a strong sweetness, but it’s very difficult to grow, especially in the harvest season. A drop of rain at the wrong time can spoil everything”, Mr. Amakata continues. “Even when the ‘Baking Tokachi Bread’ committee was launched in 2012, aiming to make delicious bread using Tokachi wheat, we found that securing enough supply for baking was a big issue. Given the agricultural environment of Tokachi, it’s more efficient to make one kind of wheat and harvest it all at once, than to grow a variety of wheats.

Of course, the farmers also want to make customers happy, but the practical problems with growing local wheat for bread are quite significant. It’s hard to cultivate, and you don’t know if you’ll get the desired quantity and quality, plus the demand isn’t even very stable. The farmer’s livelihoods depend on selling what they grow, so I can understand why they think it’s too risky. So even now, we can only really ask farmers to whom we have a direct connection to grow Kitanokaori."

Going back to the 1970s, Kenji – our second generation Masuya president – faced the same problem. He first declared his ambition to eat local bread whilst drinking locally produced wine, but it was not until 1987 that he was able to produce bread based on Haruyutaka wheat, grown in Hokkaido. When nature is a stakeholder, you cannot expect results overnight.

This is where the pioneering spirit of Hokkaido comes into play; these are people who think things through by themselves, and then execute by themselves. They are stubborn and do not easily give up.

“The area of Tokachi is really quite blessed. It is excellent land for agriculture, because of the long periods of sunshine and large temperature differences. I want to make people outside of the area aware of this”, Mr. Nakajima says. “Since our ancestors’ settlement in Hokkaido was all around the same time, the children tend to have similar ages. We are very lucky to have strong and easy connections to one another”.

The ‘Baking Tokachi Bread’ committee eventually achieved its dream of developing an original bread from the Kitanokaori wheat. The bread is called ‘Oduble Tokachi’, and looks similar to Ciabatta, though it tastes rather different. The amount of water included for ordinary wheat bread is 60 to 70%, but for the Kitanokaori wheat, it is a whopping 115%. It has a refreshing, moist texture without being chewy, and so it goes well with a thicker sauce, leaving a mild, pleasant aftertaste of wheat.

Mr. Amakata proudly says “we spent five years on trials; it was in the sixth year that we settled on this taste”.

“Under the guidance of Mr Shiga – the chef of a well-known boulangerie, ‘Signifiant Signifié’, in Tokyo – some of the committee members’ shops are now making this bread. Each shop has given it a slightly different taste. I think it works best combined with food, like we do for rice. It certainly works well with Tokachi cheese, vegetables and wine. We’re working together with the “Eating Tokachi Bread” committee, as well as the “Natural Cheese Council”, to put together some recipes. In our shop, Mugioto, for example, we have some archetypal Hokkaido recipes, such as Genghis Khan [the local name for a lamb hot pot] with Odubre. Rather than something just for tourists, I hope it can be part of our daily life. I also hope that the 2020 Olympics will help us spread the word a little, though”, he said, laughing.

“We’re not at all saying that foreign wheat is no good, but we want to do better for the local area, and also for the country more broadly, since Japan has a low food sufficiency rate. I think Tokachi has so much to contribute”.

You can see in Mr. Nakajima and Mr Amakata’s eyes a future where Odubre Tokachi has a place on every dining table. They talk about a fragrant and mellow scent that rises up just before the bread is ready to be baked. It seems that the dream of locally-produced bread can now, finally, be smelt in the air.