Prairie Stuart-Wolff/Japan

Tucked away in a remote location in Karatsu, in the Saga prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Prairie Stuart-Wolff is teaching me how to make chawanmushi, a sort of steamed custard, (Mark wrote about it years ago, here) in her delightfully simple and beautiful home perched on a hillside.

Prairie fetching the dashi soaked horsetail she picked that morning

A New England native, she has been living in Japan since 2007 when she and her wife, the production potter Hanako Nakazato (see Hanako’s beautiful work here) moved back to Hanako’s homeland – living at first with Hanako’s parents before eventually moving into the home they built on the same property.

“I didn’t speak any Japanese then,” explained Prairie. “So, it was hard for me to connect with the family and their friends. Food became my doorway in.”

 Prairie started by simply observing Hanako’s mum, Kuniko, who she describes as a professional homemaker. “She is really the last of the ‘cook from scratch’ generation of home cooks in Japan,” Prairie explains.

In a testament to her determination and patience, Prairie eventually graduated from leaning on the counter watching Kuniko prepare the evening meal, to doing the dishes and, eventually, to helping her cook. “It was really through food that I became part of the family.”

Prairie making chawanmushi

Educated in writing and photography, Prairie began to share her food and cultural discoveries through an online journal she created called Cultivated Days. She attracted an interested and growing audience that led her to start to host what she calls ‘Salons,’ multi-day experiences for visitors to learn and experience Japanese food and culture.

 The hallmarks of Prairie’s approach are her reverence to taste and connection to the land. She credits not speaking Japanese as instrumental in cultivating her taste for the cuisine. “Without spoken language, I just had the flavors,” she recalls. “That was my language.”  Her connection to the natural world is also evident. Her salon project, Mirukashi, is highly seasonal. She explained to me that in Japan, the four seasons are divided into 24 seasons called Nijushi-sekki, each with three micro-seasons – so actually, there are 72 seasons in a year – meaning the seasons change every five days or so. Read more here.

 This blew my mind. As I write this, it is day two of ‘Caterpillars Become Butterflies’ and before I leave Japan I will experience ‘Sparrows Start to Nest’ and ‘First Cherry Blossoms.’ If I get some downtime, I’m inspired to create a similar calendar for Glynwood, the property where I work and live. I often track the day the leaves unfurl in the Spring – calling it Pop Day. I’ve decided that season should be The Leaves Unfurl – and I’m inspired to invent 71 more. Stay tuned!

As Prairie was developing her newsletter, she interviewed producers, chefs and food experts around the country – also giving her a rich and complex understanding of Japan’s food system. Like so many places, the food ways are being lost, people are adopting an unhealthy diet in a quest for convenience, and agriculture has become largely commodified. By contrast, Prairie has nurtured relationships with a number of producers from sake to shoyu (soy sauce) to miso to tofu, helping to foster the continuance of centuries old traditions and introducing them to new audiences.

She is also lifting up the importance of home cooking from Japan’s agrarian regions far from the major cities. Tokyo is the most Michelin-starred city in the world. But, as Prairie so rightly pointed out, “they are sharing a cuisine that was birthed in the countryside.” What Prairie is doing is making that connection totally direct for the eater. During her salons, participants meet producers, harvest food like kelp (the sea is very close), enjoy master classes by chefs, and forage for ingredients themselves. Our lunch featured a horsetail, a kind of cousin to the more familiar (to me) fiddlehead, that she found earlier that morning.

After my lessons on miso marinated fish, dashi-soaked tomatoes and lightly fried burdock root, we sat down to enjoy the dishes. A totally splendid lunch – simple, elegant and delicious. It was served in a diverse array of gorgeous pottery and underscored how in this culture, the eating vessels also have their own foodways. Prairie explained how important it is that the plates and bowls change throughout the meal – like if you use a black bowl for the tofu, you wouldn’t use a black bowl again for another dish. She also said that in Japan, “pottery also has a seasonality that is just as important as the food,” with the host choosing dishes that are cooler to the touch in the summer, and warming to the eye in winter, for example.

At the end of the meal, I was most struck by the tenacity of Prairie’s vision - how hard she has worked to assimilate to a place that was pretty foreign to her without language or inherent knowledge to help her. An act that would intimidate most. Instead of shying away from the challenge, she has embraced it fully, becoming an ambassador who can inspire, teach and inform the curious about a beautiful food culture. Sign me up!

 Prairie’s salons take place about five times a year and run for five days. You can learn more here.

Mark and Prairie talking food in her kitchen

SIMPLE SILKEN CHAWANMUSHI

From Prairie at the Mirukashi salon

 Ingredients

•⁠  ⁠1/3 c. lightly beaten eggs

•⁠  ⁠3/4 c. katsuobushi dashi

•⁠  ⁠1 tbsp sake

•⁠  ⁠1/2 tsp light soy

•⁠  ⁠1 tsp salt

•⁠  ⁠8 kinome fronds

•⁠  ⁠4 small serving dishes (a size to hold about 1/4 to 1/3 cup)

Directions

1.⁠ ⁠Prepare a steamer that will fit all of the serving vessels and set water to boil.

2.⁠ ⁠Combine eggs, dashi, sake, and soy and mix gently.

3.⁠ ⁠Strain through a fine mesh sieve coaxing the egg whites through with a rubber spatula.

4.⁠ ⁠Add salt to taste and mix.

5.⁠ ⁠Divide evenly into serving vessels.

6.⁠ ⁠Set the filled dishes in the steamer and turn the heat down low for a very gentle boil.

7.⁠ ⁠Cover with a lid but leave the lid slightly ajar for steam to escape.

8.⁠ ⁠Steam until the custard is just set (after 10 minutes check with a toothpick or by jiggling a bit.
Give it more time if necessary).

9.⁠ ⁠Remove from steamer.

10.⁠ ⁠Garnish and serve warm or chill for 2 hours and serve cold.