Corrugated sheets made of polycarbonate and stuffed with straw – the construction of Healthian-wood’s restaurant, The Table, is like no other.
This straw came from a nearby farm. It was dried for two years before being packed into the walls to serve as insulation. If one day, several years in the future, this straw were to snap, dry out, or shrink, it would be easy to replace; simply remove the corrugated sheets and replace it. This building was designed so that the people of this village can use what they have around them to maintain it.
The Table serves course meals composed of food and drinks centered around herbs. Its concepts are “farm to table” and “field to table.” From within, you can see Healthian-wood’s herb gardens and the nearby countryside, the Tateyama mountain range, and in the distance, Toyama Bay.
The cuisine specializes in using ingredients local to Toyama. Fish caught in the ocean that morning; hogs hunted in the nearby forest; rice harvested from the village’s paddies. Here, there, everywhere … They can tell you exactly where each ingredient came from. This is a place where you can feel the connection between the single plate before you and the earth, where you can really sample that connection.
The Table offers a gastronomy like no other, one that is interwoven with the nature, history, and culture of Toyama.
Toyama boasts the Tateyama Mountains, which are part of the Northern Alps and reach an elevation of 3,000 meters, as well as Toyama Bay, which reaches depths of up to 1,000 meters. With an elevation difference of 4,000 meters, that’s a dynamic landscape, unique in the world.
It’s believed that over 800 species of fish live in the Sea of Japan, and Toyama Bay is home to 500 of them over the course of a year. Since Tateyama is an area of heavy snowfall, its many rivers and groundwater sources are constantly feeding water into the sea. All of the oxygen and nutrients washed in from the forests make the thousand-meter depths of Toyama Bay a very habitable environment for sea creatures.
There is a phrase that goes, “The mountains make the ocean,” and Toyama lives up to it. The landscape supports the area’s ecosystem, and by sampling Toyama-area produce, you can sample nature itself.
And if we’re discussing Toyama history, we cannot forget to mention medicine.
There are several reasons why medicine has become synonymous with Toyama. The first is a story about a stomach ache that led to the practice of “okigusuri,” or keeping a box of medicine in one’s home and replenishing it as needed. As the story goes, while the daimyo of Toyama was staying at Edo Castle, another daimyo fell ill with a stomach ache. When the daimyo of Toyama dosed him with a medicine he happened to have on hand, the pain disappeared. Upon seeing this, the other lords at the castle rushed to buy that medicine, and Toyama’s medicine industry spread to the entire country.
The second reason is because of international trade initiated at the end of the Edo era. At the time, Toyama was a stop for merchant ships on the trade routes between Hokkaido and Osaka. While in port, the ships would buy and sell goods. For the daimyo of Toyama, it was a chance to stock up on Hokkaido kelp.
The lord of Toyama joined forces with the lord of Satsuma (present-day Kagoshima in southwestern Japan) to do secret trade with China and Ryukyu (now Okinawa). In exchange for kelp, they received rare natural remedies from China. These they processed and turned into medicine.
The religion of Toyama also played a role. The people of the region lived in awe of the mountains, and most people would never venture up them, but practitioners of the strict Buddhist sect of Shugendō engaged in harsh training deep in their forests. As part of this training, they had to eat various kinds of medicinal herbs, which they processed themselves. This is why it is believed that ascetic mountain monks may have started selling medicine.
In this way, the history of herbs as medicine was passed down through generations, and that’s how they’re now woven into the gastronomy of the region.
This gastronomy is also represented by other aspects of Toyama culture. Used to serve the food is Etchu Seto pottery, which is made from Toyama clay. Yukio Shakunaga, who was supported by the one and only Steve Jobs, and his daughter You are behind this ceramic art.
The interior design of The Table is also full of Toyama specialties, from the traditional “washi” paper to the embedded glass and the mud walls designed by local craftsmen. Please take your time as you see, feel, and taste the gastronomy that’s interwoven with local history.
