The Setouchi
“This Paradise, This Ideal Sea Garden"
— Donald Richie, The Inland Sea
Located roughly in the center of the Japanese archipelago, the Setouchi region is the islands, people, and culture in and around the Seto Inland Sea. The Setouchi only came into existence 10,000 years ago after the end of the last ice age when the rising waters of the Pacific Ocean poured into the basin between the high mountains on Japan’s mainland Honshu and Shikoku Islands. The basin became the shallow, nearly-enclosed Seto Inland Sea. The mountains and hills in the basin became the over 3,000 islands in the sea. It was as if the gods had created a large, natural fish pond like the rock-walled ponds built by the ancient rulers of Hawaii and Polynesia along the coasts of their islands near the mouths of nutrient-rich, freshwater streams in which they cultivated edible seaweeds and trapped and raised ocean fish.
“An infinite number of islands of all sizes... such elegant beauty over a vast area. Could there be anywhere in the world more beautiful than this?” — The world-traveling German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen, 1860.
In the Setouchi, the wall-like mountains of the mainland islands that surround the region protect it from strong winds, producing the Seto Inland Sea’s famously calm waters. Four narrow channels—the Kanmon Strait in the west, the Hoyo Strait in the south, and the Akashi and Naruto Straits in the east—provide exchanges of water and seafood between the Seto Inland Sea and the Pacific Ocean beyond. Flowing down from the Honshu and Shikoku Island mountains are over six-hundred river systems that discharge trillions of liters of nutrient-rich fresh water annually into the sea. The fast-flowing straits created by the sea’s myriad islands trap and churn these nutrients in the Seto Inland Sea’s shallow waters, nourishing fields of edible seaweeds and also sea grasses that are the breeding grounds and homes for all kinds of seafoods.
“This paradise, this ideal sea garden,” is how Donald Richie, the American author who lived most of his life in Japan, described the Setouchi in his travel memoir “The Inland Sea” published in 1971. Due to its unique topography and favorable climate, the Setouchi is the most productive coastal food zone in the world, producing 20 times more tons of seafood per square kilometer per year than the Mediterranean Sea. The Seto Inland Sea brims with seafoods—schools of coastal fish, colonies of octopus, squid, shrimp, and crab, and beds of clams, mussels, and over thirty varieties of oysters—as well as acres of edible seaweeds.
Oysters have been cultivated in the calm, shallow coastal waters off of Hiroshima prefecture in the Seto Inland Sea since the 16th century, and today the area's many bays and coves produce 60% of Japan’s winter crop and more than all of the United States’ annual production.
The land of the Setouchi is as blessed as the sea. A long, narrow region, the Setouchi occupies an agriculturally ideal position on the boundary between the Earth’s temperate and semi-tropical zones. Summers are long and hot. Winters are short and mild, yet cool enough to bring vegetables and fruits to the peak of their flavor. Rainfall is modest, but generously falls during the two most important times in the growing season: at the end of spring when the region experiences the tail-end of the monsoons that start In India and arrive in the Setouchi around June and again at the end of summer when typhoons come from the south in September. Fertilized by mineral-rich volcanic soil, the Setouchi’s farms produce every type of grain, vegetable, and fruit, except for pineapples and bananas, as pointed out by one local farmer. Fresh foods are available throughout the year. There is always some enticing food at the peak of its flavor.
The Setouchi’s bounty of foods combined with the Seto Inland Sea’s historical role as Japan’s main waterway made the region the center of development of Japan’s society and sea-based culture. The country unified as a nation around the sea with its first capital just over the mountains in Nara and later at nearby Kyoto. The light, seasonal style of cooking that evolved in the region was the foundation of Japan’s nature-oriented washoku cuisine. Still today, the core of the Japanese culinary repertoire is the foods and dishes made in the Setouchi. To know Setouchi cooking is to know the heart and soul of Japanese cuisine.
Japan’s Kitchen
Food has been the Setouchi’s greatest asset throughout the region’s history. For centuries, the Setouchi was the main supplier of foods to the rest of Japan—foods famous for their quality because they are mainly wild-caught seafoods and foods grown on small family farms owing to the fact that the island-filled sea and mountainous terrain prevent large-scale fishing and farming.
The Setouchi’s basket of foods included not only the region’s fresh foods, but also Japan’s first, large-scale manufactured foods. Sea salts produced on the tidal flats along the region’s many islands starting in the 7th century, sake made in Nada City in the 14th century, and soy sauce from over 400 breweries on Shodoshima Island in the late 16th century. Also included were many foreign foods, which first arrived and were produced in Japan in the Setouchi because the Seto Inland Sea, historically, was the country’s main trade route with the rest of the world. Mandarin oranges from China in 100 AD, tomatoes courtesy of Portuguese adventurers and Dutch traders in the 16th century, and strawberries and olives in the 19th and 20th centuries. Even mayonnaise, marmalade, and whiskey all made their first appearance in Japan in the Setouchi.
The region’s foods were shipped through Osaka, located at the eastern end of the Setouchi, and the city became Japan’s first major commercial center due to the financing and trading of food that took place there. It was also known as the food capital of the country, with the delightful nickname of “Tenka no Daidokoro,” meaning “Heaven’s Kitchen.”
Small, family farms dominate the Setouchi, on which nearly every possible type of vegetable and fruit is grown, many of which are unique heritage varieties or grown in special ways that make them the best they can be in terms of flavor even before they arrive in the kitchen.
A Paradise of Citrus
Today, the food that the Setouchi is most famous for is citrus. The Setouchi’s conditions—hot summers, mild winters, semi-tropical rainfall, and calm air—are ideal for growing citrus. Citrus trees are everywhere. Citrus orchards cover entire islands, tiered on stone-walled terraces called ishizumi that line mountainsides from the edge of the sea up to the sky. Citrus orchards are tucked deep within sheltered mountain valleys. Citrus trees can be found in almost every garden of the region’s towns and villages and also growing wild on hillsides and along roadsides.
The region grows one of the broadest, most diverse, and exotic ranges of citrus in the world. From the primordial tiny sansho berry to ethereally fragrant sudachi, kabosu, and yuzu, hundreds of varieties of mikan tangerines, and all kinds of modern citrus, including grapefruits, limes, oranges, and lemons. The sweet-sour varieties are a mainstay of the Setouchi’s natural, healthy diet throughout the year. Tart, sour-sweet citrus are the most important seasoning in Setouchi cooking because of their ability to brighten the flavors of all foods, create harmony among flavors in a dish, and tantalize the eater’s appetite.
The Setouchi’s citrus also enhance the region’s natural beauty and charm. They perfume the air with their fragrant flowers, deepen the lushness of the forests and fields with their evergreen leaves, and illuminate the landscape with the golden colors of their fruit during the day, which also glow like lanterns in the half-light of morning and evening.
In Japan, citrus is nature’s symbol of paradise. Its evergreen leaves represent the eternity of nature and the immortality of one’s soul. Its delightfully exotic fragrances, beautiful colors, and irresistible sweet-sour flavors express all aspects of the essential goodness of nature.
