This is a continuation of yesterday's post about the increased consumption of vinegar in Japan and its relation to a PR campaign by a large producer. While I poked around online for information about the Japanese vinegar consumption, I came across a short report prepared by the Development Bank of Japan. This report, though only three pages long, turned out to be a vault of interesting vinegar facts I had no idea about.

In Japan, most of vinegars are made from rice, which is first brewed into sake, using yeast. The alcohol in this sake is then converted into vinegar by introducing various acetic acid bacteria. Old records suggest that the production method of vinegar came from China in the 4th century (along with that of rice-based sake). From the Asuka court in Nara, vinegar started to spread in the Kansai (Western Japan) region, but the spread was slow. Some cities in Osaka and Wakayama became known for different methods of vinegar production, but it was not until Edo period that the use of vinegar became popular among commoners all over Japan. Even now, the Southwestern Japan consumes much more--according to a study, four times more--vinegar than the Northeastern Japan.

In addition to the East-West gap in the consumption of vinegar, there's another complicating factor that we shouldn't ignore when talking about vinegar in Japan. Although there are a few national producers of vinegar (Mizkan, Tamanoi etc.), there are quite a few local producers that make vinegar in traditional ways specific to their regions. One concentration of such producers is in Fukuyama, Kagoshima. Instead of converting ethyl alcohol into vinegar in an accelerated "force-ventilation" method, vinegar makers in Fukuyama let brown rice and wheat ferment naturally in gigantic clay pots. Because of the long fermentation period, the Fukuyama vinegar has a dark cherry wood hue. (This type of vinegar is called "kurozu", black vinegar.) It takes about 3-6 months for fermentation and an additional year or so of aging before kurozu can be shipped out. There are other kinds of regional specialty vinegars, many of them in the Southwestern part of Japan.

In recent years, these regional specialty vinegars have been in the media spotlight. There seems to be two trends merging together to push this trend: the boom in the "health food" industry and another boom in the locally produced specialty food in general. When I did an Amazon.co.jp search for "vinegar," six out of the first 24 results somehow claimed health and aesthetic benefits of eating (and drinking!) vinegar. Three approached regionally produced vinegar as a part of a general quest for high-quality specialty condiments. (Five promoted the use of vinegar as cleaning agent in eco-conscious households, one was a straightforward vinegar recipe book, and others were mysteriously irrelevant results.)

Vinegar has been "discovered" as a new health food that supposedly lowers bad cholesterol, fights allergies, lower blood pressure, accelerates weight loss (a bit thing in already-rail-thin Japan), beautifies skin, and generally betters body condition. Although these healthy claims have never been conclusively proven, many Japanese people have turned to vinegar for a miraculous cure for what ails them (or may ail them in future, if, god forbid, they don't drink vinegar every day!). In this regard, traditionally produced vinegars are regarded as more beneficial than mass-produced ones, because they often contain more of the stuff that's supposed to do good to your health.

The other half of this rather sour phenomenon is the increased interest in regional specialty food in general, but this post is long, I'm getting tired. So that part is for tomorrow...