Fermented foods are a very big deal in Portland. Chef Machiko Tateno and Kitchen Nippon participated in the  9th Annual Portland Fermentation Festival on the 18th of October. We introduced amazake and showed a couple simple ways to use it.

We started preparation 5 days before the event and made from scratch all the food we distributed as samples.

Kitchen Nippon preparing koji to make amazake for the festival

Portland has many nice markets where you can buy high-quality organic vegetables at a decent price.

A variety of veggies pickled for the event, with the base ingredient being amazake

 

Machiko Tateno making amazake mayo
Arriving at the Ecotrust Bldg for the Portland Fermentation Festival 2018
Prepping the display table with the amazake pickles
Just finished the display!
Machiko Tateno explaining what amazake is and how to use it

Many people couldn’t believe we didn’t use any sugar to make the amazake.

 

Earnest and Yuri of Jorinji Miso telling visitors about their miso dressing and Super Quick Miso Soup

At a panel discussion, Chef Machiko Tateno talked about amazake and its uses. Kaoru Shibata from Kitchen Nippon talked about the art and craft of fermentation in Japan. She would like to promote a community link between Portland and Japan to create and share new fermentation ideas.

Attentive captive audience…

The enthusiastic audience asked a lot of questions about making amazake, koji, and miso.

 

The Kitchen Nippon team

The 9th Annual Portland Fermentation Festival was a spectacular event! We met a lot of wonderful people and learned much about the fermentation movement in Portland. Kitchen Nippon and Chef Machiko Tateno want to thank Liz Crain and Jorinji Miso  for inviting us to the event.