Think the Earth

The "Collabo Shokudo" only serves 20 meals a day and are quite reasonably priced at 800 yen. On the day that I went, the menu of the day was a vegetarian Indian meal.
photo by Angie Amasawa

The "one-day chef system" is an excitingly new way of running restaurants that serve lunch and dinner specials. Anyone who loves to cook can resister as a chef. It is an innovative idea to help enliven communities through food. "Collabo Shokudo" (collaboration restaurant) located in Nagano Prefecture, was the earliest adopter of this system in Nagano. It not only runs a community restaurant, but this restaurant
has also been engaged in a wide range of efforts to bridge the distance between farmers and consumers.

The NPO "Shoku To Nou No Machizukuri Network" (community development network for food and agriculture) opened the restaurant, "Collabo Shokudo," in 2009, in hopes of serving as a hub for local farmers and the community. Currently, there are 33 crews of one-day chefs and 10 farmers who provide fresh produce. A wide variety of dishes like local cuisines introduced by elderly women of the community, recipes from ancient documents found in the region, café-style lunches, handmade soba noodles made from buckwheat cultivated by the chefs themselves, and cuisines from India are served in the restaurant. When you look at the menu, you will notice that most of the menu focus mainly on vegetables. This is because a lot of delicious vegetables are grown in Ueda City and its surrounding area.

"We're not trying to be a vegetarian restaurant. But the menus tend to incorporate a lot of vegetables because farmers want customers to enjoy their vegetables" says Ms. Noriko Takeuchi, the restaurant coordinator. Ms. Takeuchi, who happens to be vegan, not only helps run the restaurant, but she also cooks in the restaurant as a one-day chef once a month. She serves a vegetarian menu called "La Verdura" (meaning vegetables in Italian). The menus, which all reflect each chef's personality and passion for food, not only help introduce local, seasonal produce, but they may also help cultivate curiosity for food.

Two of the one-day chef crews are also farmers that provide the produce. "Pansies are actually edible" explained Ms. Yayoi Shimizu, one such crew member, as she pointed to the little flower on top of the "runner bean and coconut pudding" which was served with my main meal, fried rice noodles with an abundance of home-grown vegetables. While providing produce cultivated on her organic farm to the restaurant, she also goes into the kitchen and cooks up a storm once a month. "I can't see what's going in the world from just working on the farm." Providing vegetables to "Collabo Shokudo," selling vegetables, and interacting with the customers as a chef has given her a great opportunity to get to know what consumers are thinking.

"Collabo Shokudo" also organizes a farmer's market called "Collabo Ichi" on the third Sunday of every month. There is also a community space called "Matsuo-machi Food Salon" with food-processing and one-day pastry making facilities near the restaurant available to all, so people can process foods or make pastries there and sell them at the shop.

"Collabo Shokudo" is not just a restaurant that serves meals. Rather, it is also a place where producers and consumers can get together to exchange their thoughts and ideas about food. Twenty-one restaurants across Japan have adopted the "one-day chef" system. Why not go to a nearby community restaurant and experience a taste of local cuisine?