Rice, Noodle, Fish (26 page)

I try to take all of this in, to think of something appropriate to say, but nothing comes out. Being American, with a grandfather who stormed the shores of Okinawa and whose cohort likely celebrated the news of the bombing, makes it only more complicated. The emotions swirl and take shape inside you, one after the next, a tarmac procession of loaded cargo waiting to take off: guilt, regret, rationalization, anger, acceptance, ambivalence. My internal chaos contrasts sharply with the extraordinary sense of calm transmitted by everyone I meet, especially the gentle
hibakusha
at my side, sharing her story, patiently waiting for her dinner.

I can't help but try to connect the dots—the smiling old woman with the vanished family, the stone monuments to peace, the people who gather around this improbable postwar food—and when I do, this is all I can see: a city of origami artists taking the scraps they've
been given and bending them into something beautiful.

A few minutes later Lopez hands her a bag stuffed full of food—three pork
okonomiyaki
to go—and her face lights up like Christmas Eve.

“His
okonomiyaki
is very good,” she says, then shuffles off into the night with her bag of goodies.

I fight off a few tears and look up at Lopez. He shakes his head. “She always orders
okonomiyaki
with udon. I can't get her to try it with soba.”

米 麺 魚

Ever since its owner developed tendinitis in his shoulder back in 2008, Okonomiyaki Lopez has been closed on Saturdays, a reality that doesn't sit well with the parents-in-law. “In Japan, when you're young you're supposed to work hard all the time. My mother-in-law's friends in the neighborhood ask her why we take Saturdays off.” He says this with the subtle grin of a man who long ago stopped worrying about the opinions of his in-laws.

Behind the smile, Lopez is nervous, pacing slowly in front of the shuttered shop. He has been meaning to drop in on one of his apprentices for months now, ever since he opened his shop behind Hiroshima Station. He sent flowers, of course, along with a bright Okonomiyaki Lopez shop sign, but today would be the first time tasting the student's work. To add to the pressure, Lopez has invited along Hiroki, his master, to help assess the quality of the Lopez school of
okonomiyaki
.

Hiroki picks us up in front of the shop in his van, and master and student embrace like old friends. “You look good,” says Lopez. “I've been worried about you.” The reunion is spoiled in part by a bit of troubling news Hiroki has just received: a former student of his suddenly died last week, and now Hiroki, as cosigner on the restaurant lease, is expected to inherit the shop. The bank delivered the news earlier this week.

Hiroki is seventy-one years old, and clearly in no shape to be running another man's
okonomiyaki
shop. He has spent the past few years in a two-front battle against liver and colon cancer, and after three operations and rounds of chemo, his body is starting to give out on him. But his dedication to his students, he says, takes precedence. “The bank told me I either have to pay or go back to work. So I'm going back to work.”

When the crowds descend, Lopez's wife, Makiko, joins him at the
teppan.

(Matt Goulding)

Hiroki was born in Nagasaki a year after the bomb and moved to Hiroshima in 1968. He was working as a bartender in the early 1970s when an
okonomiyaki
place opened upstairs and the owner offered to train him. Ten years later he opened his own branch and began, little by little, to make the changes to the ingredients and techniques and cooking implements that have come to define one of Hiroshima's most famous and influential strains of
okonomiyaki
.

Since then, he's trained over fifty students in the art of Hassho-style
okonomiyaki
, an open-door, open-book philosophy that runs counter to the guardedness you find in many corners of the culinary world. “I have no secrets. I want people to do well.”

Okonomiyaki Masaru shares more than a few things in common with Okonomiyaki Lopez: the long U-shaped
teppan
, the bright colors and Latin music, the crowds that descend upon the place as soon as the sun goes down. We arrive unannounced, and Hiraoka Masaru looks dumbstruck when he sees Lopez and Hiroki walk through the door. He greets us nervously, then retreats to the
teppan
to tend to his cabbage.

Hiroki watches him work, quietly, carefully, throwing off tiny nods of approval as he analyzes the methodical construction of Masaru's
okonomiyaki
: the oval shape of the crepe, the freshly boiled noodles, still dripping with water, the double-yolk eggs, the rising heat off the surface of the
teppan
.

Hiroki grows silent for quite some time, looks lost in the midst of the
teppan
, as if he's staring into a lava lamp of his life. Is he thinking of the fifty young men who have chosen him as
their guide? The foulmouthed kid from Hokkaido, the one who got rich fast in Tokyo, the Guatemalan who surprised everyone? Or is he thinking about the one who just slipped away, and the painful path ahead of him?

Masaru is not his student, which makes the familiarity of his moves all the more meaningful. Why the thick
teppan
? Why fresh noodles? That's the way master did it. Why two yolks? Why? Why? Because that's how master taught me—the simple answer to the most important food questions of Japan.

Three generations, three branches of an
okonomiyaki
discipline responsible for feeding Hiroshima the food it craves. To Masaru's right, chopping cabbage, is a fourth branch, his own disciple, who will spread the gospel in some unknown direction. He'll call it not Hassho style or Lopez style but Masaru style to his customers and to his own students one day, yet the fountain of his inspiration is seated right next to me, cancer-riddled, hard of hearing, watching the little waves of his legacy ripple across Hiroshima.

“I haven't changed anything. This is exactly as Lopez-san taught me,” says Masaru, wiping off a trail of sweat inching down his forehead. “My goal is to reach his level, to make it just like his. I'm not there yet, but my customers will tell me when I am.” With this last part Lopez blushes just a bit. With this last part, Hiroki snaps out of his silence, mumbles his approval, and blushes a bit too.

Another order comes in, and Masaru rushes back to the other side of the
teppan
and gets to work. He spackles the crepe with the back of the ladle, packs the cabbage lightly, lets the noodles dance across the hot surface, paints it with a generous stroke of Otafuku sauce. And when everything is ready, stacked high and bubbling, double yolk dripping down the side, he grabs a handful of jalapeños and scatters them over the
okonomiyaki
.

“It's our bestseller.”

 

600

Rice arrives from China, beginning a long regional trade relationship in which the Chinese and Koreans export vital cultural cornerstones (tea, Buddhism, ceramics, various culinary staples) and the Japanese reward them with a mixture of respect and resentment.

1543

Portuguese sailors shipwreck off the coast of Kyushu, bringing with them the blueprints for tempura and Christianity. The former is widely embraced; the latter is eventually banned and its practitioners summarily executed by the powerful ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

1873