Visiting an Authority on Fermentation in Shizuoka

 

Last time, we featured an actor who embraces a traveler's perspective on work, traversing industries and countries as if journeying. This time, we focus on an individual rich in the pride of an engineer, confronting the intersection of nature and science head-on.

According to him, fermentation is a mystery brought by nature.
It's a transformation driven by microorganisms. It progresses through the action of natural substances, without adding anything artificial. It's extremely difficult to control and inherently carries the unpredictability of nature. That's why the technology lies in creating conditions where its effects can be properly managed.

He always said, "This is the battle over whether science can control nature." "It's a battle that never ends," he added. As someone who studied agronomy, I believe agronomy is precisely the discipline that, in its battle with nature, both reveres nature's power and persistently questions what science can achieve.

As someone who dedicated his life to this, he managed things with incredible detail and care, progressing cautiously while collecting data on how specific actions altered the flavor. "Someone is working to create something delicious," he would say. "Isn't that adorable?" For him, the microbes were like pets he showered with affection, faithful subordinates who worked steadily and reliably over time.

They say God dwells in the small things. If you mismanage the control of details, fermentation progresses along a completely different vector, resulting in an entirely different output. Taste is an ambiguous thing; you cannot design it without confidence in your own tongue. Trusting that tongue's sensation, recognizing the differences you perceive, you build an image of taste. Talking with him, you realize how vast the realm of taste is that cannot be expressed in words.

Relying on taste means becoming sensitive to the definitions of words describing taste and properly quantifying them. As both a taste designer and an agricultural technician, he is essentially creating a map while continuing his journey along it.

The term "craftsman spirit" is overused; you hear it applied to any profession nowadays. I fundamentally like what it signifies, but the common explanation – "refusing easy compromise and persisting until satisfied" – still conveys only part of its meaning. That explanation keeps the vector confined within the individual. Its true meaning, I believe, is that consciousness doesn't remain within oneself but expands to encompass the historical and social significance of the profession itself.

The truth is that we can practice our profession today only because predecessors paved the way. Confronting this truth and understanding ourselves within that lineage allows us to consider how we can contribute to the profession's future development.

That's why easy compromise is impossible; daily progress becomes imperative. The notion that craftsmanship inherently refuses compromise is merely a result; what truly matters is recognizing our place within the flow from past to present. Imagining those who came before, and those before them. And realizing that while I stand at the very outer edge of the expanding ripples, I must consciously strive to make the next circle wider and larger.

Next time, I'll share the story of meeting Istanbul's punk scene. Stay tuned.