Ouma bamboo shoots are a famous specialty of Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture. Characterized by their soft texture and elegant flavor with little sludge, these high-end bamboo shoots are so highly prized that they are even requested by Kyoto and Osaka restaurants. At the “ Ouma bamboo shoots experience garden,” where a bamboo grove of about 2,000 tsubo (about 2,000 m2) spreads, we learned about the cultivation of the rich soil that produces bamboo shoots and the thoughts of the farmers.
Ouma bamboo shoots, a taste of spring in Kitakyushu
Kitakyushu City, located in the northeastern part of Fukuoka Prefecture, has a bamboo forest area of approximately 1,900 hectares, which is enough to fit 400 Tokyo Domes. This is one of the largest bamboo forests in Japan. The Ouma area in Kokura-minami Ward is especially famous for the production of “Ouma bamboo shoots” from mid to late April every year. At the “Ouma bamboo shoots experience garden” run by Mr. Noriaki Mimura, lush green bamboo shoots grow tall and thin, and from August to October, also known as “bamboo spring,” the sound of leaves rustling is refreshing, creating an even more beautiful scene of bamboo groves.
It was a bamboo grove for making baskets to transport coal.
Kitakyushu has vast bamboo forests for a reason that is unique to the city, which once prospered from its ironworks and was known as the “iron town. Originally, these bamboo groves were used to make bamboo baskets for transporting coal for the Yahata Steel Works (now the Yahata district of the Kyushu Works of Nippon Steel Corporation). Generally, madake is used for bamboo baskets. However, in this area, the roots of moso bamboo were brought back from Kagoshima, also in Kyushu, to expand the bamboo forests, and bamboo baskets were made using moso bamboo.
Mimura says, “Someone happened to eat a bamboo shoot that grew in the spring, and it turned out to be very tasty. Moso bamboo is said to have a good taste, aroma, and texture. As the coal industry declined, people in Goma shifted from harvesting bamboo for baskets to harvesting bamboo shoots for food.
Thus, bamboo shoots began to be shipped for canning and other processing, but around the 1975’s, prices plummeted due to cheap Chinese imports.
In the Ouma area, branding was promoted to separate Ouma bamboo shoots from imported products and to distribute them at a reasonable price.
Elegant taste, highly prized by ryotei restaurants in Kyoto and Osaka
The bamboo forests in the area where Ouma bamboo shoots are harvested have reddish-brown clay soil. While this soil is low in nutrients, it is also highly airtight and does not contain much air, resulting in bamboo shoots that are fine-textured and soft to the tongue. Furthermore, digging them out before they emerge from the soil prevents oxalic acid and tyrosine, which cause lye and gouging, from oxidizing, allowing them to be harvested with less lye.
One might think that digging out the bamboo shoots before they emerge from the soil is a simple matter of digging them out, but that is exactly what a skilled craftsman does. Just finding the bamboo shoots in the soil is a labor-intensive process.
The bamboo shoots are then carefully harvested by artisans in an environment suitable for their growth, and they are superb boiled in soy sauce, cooked with rice, or served as sashimi. The development of highways has made it possible to deliver freshly harvested bamboo shoots all over Japan, which has further enhanced the reputation of Ouma bamboo shoots as a brand food, as evidenced by the fact that restaurants in Kyoto and Osaka now request Ouma bamboo shoots.
The fine red soil nurtures “Ouma bamboo shoots.
The red soil of Ouma bamboo shoots is indispensable when talking about bamboo shoots. In Fukuoka, Yame City is also known as a production center of bamboo shoots, but its soil is black. Unlike black soil, Goma’s red soil has a fine texture and high water retention capacity, which prevents light from penetrating into the ground, thus preventing photosynthesis and hardening the bamboo shoots, allowing them to remain soft and tender.
At Ouma, the softness of the bamboo shoots is further enhanced by adding 10 to 20 centimeters of red soil where the shoots are likely to sprout, known as “Kyakudo. Because light is blocked from the bamboo shoots, the highest grade of “Ouma bamboo shoots,” which have white skin and white flesh, can be harvested, and are sold at a high price. Mimura says, “It seems that restaurants appreciate the pure white bamboo shoots with the skin on after they are boiled.
Mr. Mimura has been involved in the production of bamboo shoots while running a real estate company and inheriting a bamboo garden that has been in his family for generations since childhood. He now runs Tomoko Farm with his wife, son, daughter, and other family members, as well as his staff.
Dig carefully, one by one, checking by hand.
It is very difficult to dig out bamboo shoots from the ground. It’s the wild boars that are the best at finding them,” Mimura smiles. If the tip of a bamboo shoot is caught by a boar’s foot, it is too late to harvest it. During the harvest season, I go to the mountains every day and dig when I detect the slightest bulge in the ground,” he says. If the bamboo shoots are exposed to the ground even a little, photosynthesis begins, the skin changes color, and the flesh becomes hard, so digging is a day-by-day process. As the bamboo shoots grow, they become starchy to keep animals away, but harvesting them early in the ground reduces the amount of stink,” he says.
Since each bamboo shoot differs in shape and the direction of its tips in the ground, it is difficult to mechanize the harvesting process, so the skilled staff digs the bamboo shoots carefully and quickly with a fork so as not to damage them. During the spring harvest season, it is hard work to spend four to five hours a day on the slopes of the bamboo grove, bending at the waist while harvesting, but Mr. Mimura and his staff harvest an average of 250 to 300 bamboo shoots per day. If a beginner tries to do the same, he or she will quickly damage the bamboo shoots in the soil, or if he or she digs carefully to avoid damage, he or she will barely be able to harvest three to five in the same amount of time.
The “Ouma bamboo shoots experience garden” began full-fledged sales nationwide after Mr. Mimura took over. Mr. Mimura is particular about shipping bamboo shoots that have been grown with love and care immediately after harvest. We dig them in the morning, pack them in bags by noon, and ship them immediately. Even in the Kansai region, they arrive the next morning. I want people to be able to enjoy the freshly harvested flavor right away,” says Mimura.
Fertilizer, logging, and other hands-on efforts to create rich soil
In order to grow delicious bamboo shoots, bamboo groves need to be cared for throughout the year. Bamboos are connected to each other underground by underground stems, but when the underground stems become old, the soil becomes tough. Therefore, every year around October, 300 to 400 bamboos are cut down and thinned out. This softens the soil, and the bamboo shoots that grow in the soil are also soft. The ideal is for the ground to be so soft that it shakes when you step on it,” says Mimura, smiling as he looks out over the bamboo grove. To help the bamboo shoots grow, Mimura also sows fertilizer such as soy sauce pomace, which contains nitrogen to stimulate growth, at the same time that new shoots are growing.
Growing bamboo shoots for the future
In recent years, the focus on food safety has led to a growing interest in domestically produced bamboo shoots, and the popularity of “Ouma bamboo shoots,” which are safe, secure, and flavorful, is only increasing. However, due to the particulars of cultivation area, growth, and harvesting methods, only about 10% of bamboo shoots produced in Japan are distributed nationwide, and the majority are imported from China and other countries. Mr. Mimura, feeling a sense of crisis, has formed the “Bamboo Shoot Guardians” to support the “Ouma bamboo shoots” brand by taking on the task of cleaning up the mountains on behalf of the farms, which are suffering from an aging population and lack of successors. The “bamboo shoot digging experience,” held every year on weekends from late March to mid-April, is always a great success. The beauty of the bamboo forests, the love of the growers, and the fresh, clean taste of the freshly harvested Ouma bamboo shoots are just a few of the many attractions of the bamboo shoots that the children of Ouma will be responsible for in the future.
