By the way, Mr. Ito returned to Yutagawa 7 years ago. In the wake of his father’s physical condition, Mr. Ito, who used to engage in TV production, returned to his hometown and decided to take over his family business in agriculture. He heard that his family had been cultivating “Fujisawa-kabu”, a turnip, after returning home. Fujisawa is a name of the small village neighboring Yutagawa. “The story was that Fujisawa-kabu was facing extinction at that time, and one of the local farmers, named Mr. Masatoshi Goto, took over and was carefully cultivating it. Then my family was invited to give it a try.” In the vicinity of Yutagawa, there are other turnips, which have been passed down as local native vegetables the same as with Fujisawa-kabu. One is “Atsumi-kabu” of the Atsumi district in the township of Tsuruoka. The other one is “Tagawa-kabu”, of the Tagawa district. Both are red turnips. The difference between Fujisawa-kabu and these two is that the Atsumi and Tagawa kabu have a round shape, but Fujisawa-kabu is slender in shape like a small daikon radish.
“From a certain time, the round-shaped ones, that are efficient to grow everywhere, became a main variety, even in Fujisawa. About 30 years ago, Fujisawa-kabu wasn’t on the market. Each family grew it for only private consumption in their backyard garden. However, by hearing one of granny’s dearest wishes that she wanted to leave this variety to the next generation, Mr. Goto mainly started to revive it with its traditional farming method and distribute it. As it can’t be made on a large scale, and having value in its rarity, its name has gradually been spread.” According to Mr. Ito, they are being used by the pickle maker Honcho, and by chef Masayuki Okuda, who runs the Al-che-cciano and il-che-cciano restaurants and disseminates information about Shonai through food. Therefore, Fujisawa-kabu has steadily been paid attention to. Because of its thin skin, it is also suitable to be eaten raw. Thus, it gets a good rap.
