Think “fine dining” and caviar, abalone, uni, Wagyu and foie gras probably come to mind. But in the same way that vanilla and peanut butter are stock-standard at every ice-cream shop, these symbols of rarefied cuisine have faced criticism in recent years for being overused to the point of ridicule – with truffle shavings and gold leaf adorning everything from siu mai to lamb shank as shorthand for “your bill is going to be astronomical”. Yet just as fashion can be divided into statement pieces and “quiet luxury”, so can prodigiously priced ingredients.
The Japanese excel at imbuing quiet luxury into premium produce with the same subtle grace and dignity found in other aspects of their culture. One example is the Japanese fruit tomato, which is in season during autumn and winter. Famed for its robust sweetness and umami packed into a compact body, this fruit breed came about thanks to an errant typhoon that lashed Japan’s Shikoku island in 1970.
Legend has it that in the storm’s aftermath, a dam broke near the city of Kochi and flooded a tomato farm with saltwater. Unable to absorb as much water as they normally would, the tomatoes became smaller, denser and much, much sweeter. They were an immediate hit, with the Japanese preferring to eat them raw because of their natural sweetness: they contain double the sugar content of a regular tomato.
Today, the fruit is grown in the open in the seaside Setouchi region, as well as in state-of-the-art greenhouses acros.