2026.10.25「サイドラインギリギリの醤油トーク」

The Soy Sauce Ambassador's Prize Giveaway

Yasumi Shin'ichiro (安住紳一郎), host of *Nichiyou Tengoku*, calls himself "Japan's only Soy Sauce Ambassador" and serves every year as MC of the National Soy Sauce Competition awards ceremony — this year its 53rd edition. The ceremony was held on October 1st at a hotel near Suiten-gu Shrine in Tokyo. Through that connection, the program announced a giveaway: a five-bottle set of 100 ml mini bottles from each of the five manufacturers that won the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Award, to be sent to 30 listeners.

The sets are commemorative items distributed at the ceremony and are not sold commercially. The Minister of Agriculture Award goes to the top five entries in the competition; below it sit the Senior Official of the Minister's Secretariat Award (10 products) and the Excellence Award (35 products). Yasumi noted that some producers do not normally bottle their soy sauce in mini sizes, making the sets genuinely hard to obtain.

The "Rare" Name on This Year's Certificate

Every year, the official award certificates — printed on government-crested paper — carry the name of the sitting Minister of Agriculture. This year's bore the name of Minister Yanagi Kazuo (柳和夫), but a series of news stories involving him had been making headlines right around October 1st, prompting Yasumi to smile and say, "That's a rare one."

Assistant Nakazawa Yumiko (中澤由美子) agreed, and the two went on to observe that old certificates kept in brewery storage rooms for decades bear the names of former ministers such as Ohira Masayoshi, Suzuki Zenko, and Nakasone Yasuhiro — making it a quiet pleasure to leaf through them and sense the passage of history. They also noted that chef's-license certificates carry the name of the prefectural governor who issued them, offering a similar kind of historical amusement.

This Year's Five Winners and Re-Brewed Soy Sauce

The five manufacturers awarded the Minister of Agriculture Prize this year were:

- **Kanno Jozo (金野醸造), Miyagi Prefecture** — ninth-time winner and second consecutive year. Tokyo University of Agriculture judges conduct blind tastings with producers' names hidden; only after the results are announced do they realize "it was Kanno Jozo again." Yasumi relayed a judge's remark: "It's reassuring to know our eyes, noses, and palates haven't gone wrong." - **Kawakei Jozo (川系醸造), Miyagi Prefecture** — producers of a soy sauce called "Mild Tokkyuu." - **Fukushima Prefecture Soy Sauce Brewing Cooperative** — winning the Minister's Award for the first time in four years. - **Taka Shoyu (宝醤油), Choshi City, Chiba Prefecture** - **Fukuoka Prefecture Soy Sauce Brewing Cooperative, Chikushino City, Fukuoka Prefecture** — which entered a re-brewed soy sauce (saishikomi shoyu, 再仕込み醤油).

Yasumi explained how re-brewed soy sauce is made. Standard soy sauce combines steamed soybeans with koji mold and wheat, adds saltwater, and ferments for roughly ten months before pressing. Re-brewed soy sauce replaces the saltwater with already-finished soy sauce, producing a second brew that concentrates umami. Some producers repeat the process a third or fourth time — yielding "re-re-brewed" and even "re-re-re-brewed" varieties so labor-intensive they barely reach the market. In Kyushu, this rich style is part of everyday cooking and is particularly suited to deepening ramen broth.

The Ceremony Venue and a Senior Bureaucrat's Impressive Speech

The awards ceremony draws company presidents and product developers from across the industry — from major names such as Kikkoman, Yamasa, Higeta, Higashimaru, and Morita to smaller regional producers. After a lecture by a professor from Tokyo University of Agriculture's Department of Fermentation Science, participants taste dishes prepared by the hotel's head chef using the five award-winning soy sauces. The nigiri sushi station reportedly draws long queues. Brewery staff mingle throughout the room, so guests can share impressions directly with the makers, and there is also a path for general members of the public to attend.

Each year, a senior Ministry of Agriculture official — typically at director-general level — delivers a speech without notes. Yasumi called it "perfect from every angle," marveling at how it manages to thank producers for supporting national policy, acknowledge their economic contributions, outline future challenges, and congratulate the recipients, all without a wasted word. "You realize," he said, "that there really are some extremely capable people in government."

Four Listener "Misconception" Stories

The episode's message theme was "My Misconception," and four entries were read aloud.

**The bundle of green onions (a woman from Fukuoka City):** On a narrow commuter street, a powerfully built man in an all-black outfit — black bandana, black T-shirt, black sunglasses — was walking toward her holding what looked like a "green rod." She tensed up as they passed, then realized it was a bundle of thin green onions (万能ネギ). "What kind of outfit do you wear to run errands?" she thought, and walked home laughing.

**Mauritania = a supermarket (a bagel shop owner from Iwaki City, Fukushima):** While developing an octopus-flavored bagel, she visited a fishmonger who mentioned that "Mauritanian octopus runs about ¥3,000 per kilogram." She assumed Mauritania was a premium grocery chain known for its seafood. A staff member corrected her: Mauritania is a country in West Africa. She broke into a cold sweat.

**Surveyors = talent scouts (a woman from Yachiyo City, Chiba):** As an elementary school pupil, she was convinced that road surveyors were actually talent scouts from Tokyo, disguised in work clothes and scanning the countryside with large-lens cameras. Every time a lens pointed her way, she struck her best pose and glided past at a dignified pace.

**Yonabe = a night-time hot pot (a 48-year-old woman):** The nursery rhyme "Okaasan no Uta" contains the line "yonabe wo shite tebukuro ande kureta" — meaning to stay up through the night knitting gloves — and its illustration showed a hearth with a pot. She took "yonabe" to mean a hot pot eaten at night. This spring, when her child announced at 9 p.m. that a prop was needed for school by the next morning, she muttered "I'll have to do some yonabe" while opening the refrigerator to look for hot pot ingredients. Her husband's laughter finally set her straight.