<Begin Segment 2>

BF: So now what is this machine going to do?

TM: Well you know this is modern system. Before we used to have a tray. We had to put it by hand and then use a wooden scoop to put it into a frying pan. And we had two big frying pans. One with a lower temperature, and once it gets, the inside cooked you put it into the higher temperature, more for color and finishing it off. This is a process where it's all automated, and then the temperature varies. Naturally when you put the cold stuff it's cool, but it gets hotter as it cooks... and so it comes out automatically. But we used to this by hand.

BF: So how hot is that oil?

TM: Oh I don't know. It's... I forgot. It's something that my father -- we used to just test it by throwing water on there, and if it crackles, you knew it was hot enough. You know, all cooks do that.

BF: Yeah. So what do you think your father would think about how all of these things from sushi-making to satsumaage are machines?

TM: Yeah, I think he would be surprised we're still doing it, I think. [Laughs]

BF: Surprised why? 'Cause, think people would lose interest in fish cakes?

TM: Well, you know we used to make tofu and we used to -- you know slowly if economics doesn't work we cut it out. And so, I'll be very frank. We could buy satsumaage from a firm in California, and Hawaii, and Japan. But people seem to want it so we keep it on.

BF: So people still want the local, the...

TM: Yeah, apparently, yeah. It's like the tofu, you know the Japanese -- well the Japanese Americans eat the harder tofu , they call that momentofu, made out of... cloth. In Japan you don't find that anymore. It's all chemically hardened, but it's very soft and... but people, especially the Niseis, still think that tofu should be firm and have that usual flavor, but... I have a feeling when the Niseis -- well, I don't know -- Sanseis, Yonseis... it's something that, old custom doesn't die. The other things like miso, Niseis tend to, Sanseis use a white, sweet miso?

BF: Yeah.

TM: In Japan it's red and saltier. But I mean, just to give you an example. Old tastes die hard.

BF: Yeah, yeah. We're eating the foods that they ate in Japan, what -- forty...

TM: Oh, hundred years ago.

BF: ...hundred years ago. [Laughs]

TM: At least, yeah.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.