Going past the Kiyosumi Garden, you will discover a shop lined with colorful packages. Surprisingly this is actually rice.
“Irashae” welcome,
This is the voice Mr. Yasuo Suzuki, the smiling tan owner.
Mikawa Rice Shop founded in 1951, is relatively close to the station. Mr. Yasuo Suzuki, the shop owner, has continued his father’s business at the same location as the original store.
“Because my family was one of the first families in the area to buy a T.V., everyday at sunset the kids of the neighborhood would gather here,” said the shop owner as he narrowed his eyes.
“When I was a kid I remember seeing rice shops on the street, but these days everyone buys rice at the supermarkets. However, in this town, there still remains shops like Mikawa.”
If you peer at the back of the store you can see a mysterious large machine at work. This is a rice polishing machine.
“Here we polish the rice this way, and directly deliver to shops and houses. You know, the amount of people who prefer brown rice is also increasing for health reasons.“
Said the owner of the store.
It has been around 70 years since the opening of the Mikawa rice shop, and the rice has long been delivered to the families of this area.
Rice is the essential staple of the Japanese dinner table, but over the years as meals have become more diverse, the consumption of rice has decreased along with the amount of rice cultivation. Simply going to the store to buy bread is becoming more popular. A reflection of this changing taste is the existence of some youth who don’t even know how to make rice.
To know the changes of this town’s rice shop will give you a better idea of the changes in the Japanese family and dinner table.
In order to purchase rice from every agricultural cooperative it is necessary to purchase in massive quantities. To make brand name rice, in addition to responding to the diversification of people’s pallet, it is difficult economically speaking for small scale rice polishers to maintain a correspondingly diverse stock of options. As a result many have started to close their doors.
In order to get better economies of scale, Mikawa has ingeniously partnered with other rice shops to jointly purchase rice from all of the various regions of Japan. Recently, in order to get people of the town familiar with a wide variety of rice brands, the shop has started to sell small packs of rice for small households and single residents. These small packets of rice are also good souvenirs.
Once you leave the rice shop, on the left hand side remains the Showa retro town. Since old times, in the area you can see the different kinds of specialty shops such as Fukawaga style restaurants, dry goods stores, tofu shops, temples, tea shops and bakeries.
Here is the entrance to the Fukagawa Kiyoshumi-Shirakawa neighborhood, where new and old faces mix.
The Mikawa shop, has long supported the dinner tables of the town’s families. It has not become overly attached to old times, but instead has shifted style with the changing local families.
It is a shop that welcomes new families and singles who come to the neighborhood, and offers new ways to enjoy rice, which is the staple of the Japanese people.