In deep winter the forest gives almost nothing. The terraces are bare, the streams run thin and cold, and the morning gather comes back with little more than a basket of roots. This is when the cellar earns its keep.
Downstairs, in a cool dark room, the work of the whole year is resting. Koji grown in late summer, miso pressed in autumn, plums steeping in shochu since June, and roots packed into jars to ferment through the cold months. None of it was made for the day it was made. All of it was made for now.
There is a particular pleasure in opening a jar in January that was sealed in September. The flavour has turned deep and rounded, the way a forest floor turns rich after a long autumn. Winter cooking here is mostly an act of remembering, of bringing the warm months back up the stairs one jar at a time.
By the time the snowmelt comes again, the cellar will be lighter, and we will begin, quietly, to fill it back up for the winter after this one.
Narisawa
