What Local Gastronomy Certification means
Local Gastronomy Certification
“Local gastronomy” refers to reflecting the local climate, history, and culture in food. Local Gastronomy Certification is a system to certify restaurants, accommodation facilities, and processed foods that embody this principle.
Certification ranges from one star to five stars.
In addition to the obvious passion and creativity towards foods, and sustainable activities engaged in by the restaurant, certification takes a comprehensive look at how the local climate, history, and culture are reflected in the food, the ratio of local products used, including agricultural products and seasonings, initiatives in unison with producers (such as promoting contract farming to ensure farmers have stable incomes), and amount of contribution to the region.
What local gastronomy aims for is creating a huge circle where cooks and diners are linked by hand. The Association holds study sessions and exchange events targeted at member establishments to promote information sharing at the local and regional level. We hope you will take this opportunity to join us as a way to protect cuisine suited to the climate of each region, to develop it, and to pass it on to the next generation.
Message from the Representative Director
Yukiguni A-Grade Gourmet, predecessor to Local Gastronomy Certification
The predecessor of the Local Gastronomy Certification system was the Yukiguni A-Grade Gourmet, which started in 2010. This was started by supporters in seven municipalities across the Snow Country tourism region from Niigata, Gunma, and Nagano. While it was called “A-Grade,” this definitely does not mean it was high-class food. “A-Grade” in Japanese is read “Ei-Kyu,” a homonym for “eternal,” so it meant “tastes we want to maintain eternally.” The challenge given out by Jiyujin, a magazine aimed at protecting and passing on to the next generation the fast-vanishing traditional cooking of the region, suited to its climate and geography, was answered by ryokan (inns), restaurants, and processed food manufacturers around the Snow Country, the “Yukiguni”.
There are many valued cuisines still common here in the Yukiguni tourism region, home of course to Koshihikari-brand rice from Minami-Uonuma, but also including preserved or fermented foods like sake, miso, and pickles. There are also many different types of vegetables, both native and imported, that have become deeply rooted in the region’s lifestyles. At the same time as protecting these cuisines, we feel that if we can turn them into tourism resources, they might just hold the key to revitalizing local tourism. That is how Yukiguni A-Grade Gourmet was born.
The idea of A-Grade Gourmet eventually spread to the town of Onan, in Shimane Prefecture. Starting in 2011, Onan began describing itself as an “A-Grade Gourmet Town,” and in 2018, an association of five A-Grade Gourmet Towns covering five municipalities around the country was born.
Leaving behind “local production, local consumption,” which is nothing but a rallying cry
These days, questionnaires that ask people why they travel usually show “Food” as the top response. Maybe for that reason, voices calling for local production, local consumption have been growing ever-louder in tourism regions. But in reality, this is just a surface issue, and in addition to the ingredients used by inns, it is far from unusual to see products for sale in souvenir shops made from imported ingredients. For example, mountain vegetable soba is often made with mountain vegetables from China. Or pickles are often made using foreign ingredients.
“Today, when food production site labeling and ingredients labeling is getting stricter each year, we should ensure that as far as possible, the food we provide in a region should be providing the real food of that region.”
That is the idea that flows beneath the Yukiguni A-Grade Gourmet certification. And that is the idea that Local Gastronomy Certification has inherited as well. Of course, we are not denying the use of food imported from outside the local area, or even the country, to obtain flavors that cannot be produced with ingredients harvested or caught locally. But if there is a similar flavor, then in terms of food mileage as well, there is no need to ship something in from a long way away. Even if a given ingredient is not quite as tasty as the area famed for it, a good cook can still make a delicious dish from it.
In fact, chefs and cooks that are interested in where their foods come from are still a minority. Even if a menu says the ingredients in a dish are from such-and-such a location, it is often the case that this is simply what was written on the grocer or fishmonger’s placard, and does not mean it was deliberately selected for being from that region. Obviously, there is a tendency to believe the sellers, but today, when the era when only the ultimate in deliciousness could be provided is drawing to a close, perhaps it is the time to turn our eyes a little more to where things are produced.
Aiming for true farm-shop-factory ties
If the key to tourism becomes local cuisine, and chefs start to take an interest in local issues, then they will also improve their awareness of producers, their techniques; they will see better unit prices, and it will make their lives go more smoothly as well. It seems to be natural that creating brands from local cuisine can be born from a background like this. In addition, beyond just tourism and primary industry, restaurants and primary industry being linked, new business chances will appear for local processing companies as well, which will create true farm-shop-factory ties, true intra-regional sixth sector industrialization.
If the circle of local gastronomy widens, primary industry product prices will rise, creating a major benefit for producers. And for restaurant chefs and tourism operators, being able to obtain higher-quality products will mean there will not be any issues if they were to bump their prices up a bit. And furthermore, if we can create a sustainable environment and cycle, it will benefit all people living on the planet. That is to say, it is a plus from all three sides, and that is what will be a crucial key to maintaining the region “eternally”...
Eating is the basis of living. If chefs develop a greater interest in local ingredients, the local economy will change. We might even see new perspectives for the issue of population decline.
If we learn the climate, culture, and history of a region, we can create depth to cooking. Diners will not just sense with the right side of their brain, but the left as well, enhancing their emotional responses. And at that moment, cooking will change from eating to maintain life functions, going beyond creative and inspiring works to become a "medium" that moves people.
Local gastronomy aims for cooking that enriches the spirit, and then a society that enriches the spirit. The act of cooking will remain quite unchanged, so we want to focus on the creation of a great circle that will connect both creators and consumers. It is those restaurants, those tourism operators, those processes foods manufacturers, that come together to make up the Local Gastronomy Association. And we hope you will join us on this journey.
