UTSUNOMIYA, TOCHIGI PREF. Albert Kuwano Bakonyvari beckons me inside his factorys steam chamber, where hundreds of plump, white, crescent-shaped gyza dumplings are neatly lined on stacks of trays fitted in steel racks, waiting to be sent to the freezer.

Want to try one? I bet you havent eaten gyza at this stage of production, says the tall Hungarian-American with a goatee.

As I bite into the chewy dough, the warm juice from the ground meat and finely chopped cabbage, chives and leeks spill into my mouth as the scent of garlic hits. Unlike some of the gyza Ive had in Tokyo eateries, its surprisingly flavorful even without dabbing it in the typical soy sauce, vinegar and chili oil (ryu) combination, a characteristic I later learn is part of what defines the gyza made in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, where some restaurants advise against the overuse of condiments to avoid killing the flavor of the dumplings.

Weve put a lot of time and energy into the dough and I think the texture of our gyza is unique its firm but its delightful to eat at the same time, it doesnt fall apart but still has a softness, Kuwano, 54, says.

For the filling of the gyza, we use domestic ingredients. The meat, leeks and chives are from Tochigi Prefecture. We use garlic from Aomori Prefecture and cabbage from the Kanto area. We try to keep the flavor relatively simple so the taste of the vegetables can shine through.

This is the heart of gyza country, at the gyza capital of Japan that boasts the highest annual household expenditure on the finger-sized dumplings.

A successful branding campaign led by the city and local gyza restaurants and makers, combined with word-of-mouth recommendations and media exposure, has made Utsunomiya synonymous with the comfort food. Its a studied example of machiokoshi (town promotion), so successful, perhaps, that protecting the brand has become an occasional source of contention.

AQ Foods, founded by Hisashi and Ayako Kuwano in 1965 as Eikyu Shokuhin, has been running one of the citys largest wholesale gyza businesses, with its products being distributed to department stores and supermarkets across the nation. While the couple is now in semi-retirement, the business was handed down to their son-in-law, Albert, who arrived in Japan in 1991 and married the Kuwanos only daughter.

AQ now produces more than a dozen varieties of gyza and manj dumplings, with its flagship product being a hand-made jumbo gyza that weighs 50 grams more than double the size of a regular gyza.

You cant make quality gyza of that size using machines. Perhaps 35 grams is the limit, says Koichi Chiba, the manager of one of AQs factories in Utsunomiya, a land-locked city with a population of around 520,000. In an age of automation, Chiba says AQ is a rarity in that it still produces hand-made gyza alongside the machine-made variety.

A former itamae chef and a relative of Ayako Kuwano, Chiba and his brother joined AQ around two decades ago. The two apprenticed under the founding couple, with Chiba specializing in the art of making a balanced, flavorful filling that has just the right amount of salt, while his brother oversees the production of gyza wrappers from scratch.

For the jumbo gyza, we have people wrapping them individually and packing them in containers to be shipped, he says. Gyza this size requires real people folding the pleats to seal them. Its not a skill that can be learned overnight, he says, typically taking three months of training before the technique is mastered.

Gyza is made all over Japan, but the ones made in Utsunomiya are the best and I strive to improve our product everyday so I can say ours is No. 1.

Gyza traces its roots to Chinas jiaozi dumplings, which are thought to have originated during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), according to Hideaki Otsuka, a Tsukuba University researcher and expert on Chinese culture.

Dried jiaozi (mummified jiaozi, so to speak), had been excavated from the ruins of Dunhuang. Scholars were surprised to learn that a food so similar to todays jiaozi, with the typical features of the folded dumpling with pleats, a semicircular shape and pointed edges, was eaten in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), he said in a lecture he delivered at a food culture seminar hosted by soy sauce manufacturer Kikkoman Corp.s Tokyo headquarters.

Otsuka says an Edo Period (1603-1868) cookbook introduced three cooking methods for gyza deep-frying, pan-frying and steaming but at the time it was still seen as a Chinese dish and was not a common food.

Chinese cuisine, including jiaozi, began to be served in the Chinatowns of Yokohama, Kobe and other cities during the Meiji Era (1868-1912), but gyzas status wasnt elevated to that of fast food of choice until after World War II, when the repatriation of many Japanese from mainland China who were used to eating jiaozi sparked a gyza boom. But whereas boiled jiaozi is common in China, its birthplace, pan-fried gyza became the norm in Japan.

The first gyza restaurant in Utsunomiya is believed to have opened near Utsunomiya Station in 1952, followed by the predecessor to famed gyza chain Minmin. Other legendary gyza houses that still serve to this day followed, including Masashi and Koran.

Its unclear why gyza shops concentrated in Utsunomiya, although it may have to do with how the city produces many of the dishs essential ingredients of gyza, including pork, flour, cabbage and chives. In any case, Utsunomiya residents embraced the dumplings since 1987, when the then-Management and Coordination Agency began including foodstuff in its annual survey of consumer habits, the city has been repeatedly ranked as the nations top gyza consumer despite the fact that the results excluded gyza eaten in restaurants. The survey is based on average annual expenditure per household on ready-made gyza bought and taken home from supermarkets and gyza restaurants. That means if the figure included gyza consumed at the numerous gyza restaurants dotting the city, the number will likely be substantially higher.

An Utsunomiya city official saw the stats and came up with a plan to promote gyza as a tourist attraction, says Hoshimi Kawazu, a spokeswoman for the Utsunomiya Gyoza Association, an organization formed in 1993 with 38 gyza restaurants. The group became a cooperative association in 2001, and now boasts more than 90 gyza eateries and manufacturers as members.

Until gyza became Utsunomiyas buzzword, the primary tourist draw was the Oya stone mine, Kawazu says, but the quarry that once supplied the Oya stone used for numerous structures in Japan collapsed in 1989, and the city needed an alternative attraction.

In 1993, a TV Tokyo variety show ran a series of programs on Utsunomiyas love affair with gyza. Coupled with the launch of an annual gyza festival and the erection of the Venus of Gyza statue in 1994, Utsunomiya and its culinary pride were soon pushed into the national spotlight.

Utsunomiyas decades-long battle with rival Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, over the title of No. 1 gyza-consuming city has also become an annual media event. Hamamatsu beat Utsunomiya in 2018, with households spending an average 3,501 annually on gyza, compared to 3,241 in Utsunomiya.

Until I moved to Utsunomiya 10 years ago, I wasnt aware how much gyza is a part of peoples lives, Kawazu says. I also think what distinguishes us from other regional revitalization projects is how we work hand in hand with the city office.

As the associations influence grew, however, it also began implementing stronger measures to protect its brand. The Utsunomiya Gyza Association was trademarked in 2001, followed by Utsunomiya gyza being trademarked in 2002. These actions were aimed at clamping down on low-quality gyza calling themselves Utsunomiya gyza despite being produced and sold in other prefectures, Kawazu says.

Legal action ensued over the usage of the brand name, and association members were asked to follow strict orders when utilizing the trademarked brand.

In 2017, the operator of Utsunomiya gyza chain Umaiya which isnt a member reached a settlement with the association after being sued for using Utsunomiya gyza in its logo. Umaiya offered to take down the word ganso, or original, from its product logo and apply for membership.

Then in May, Kuwanos AQ Foods was removed from the gyza association, despite being one of the oldest gyza manufacturers in the city.

We were asked to join the association to promote Utsunomiya gyza and make it a thing, Kuwano says. We had already been selling it all over the country as Utsunomiya gyza, and the founder of the association knew that and was eager for us to join since he wanted to use our connections.

For a long time, the partnership was fruitful, Kuwano says, as Utsunomiya cemented its status as the gyza mecca, drawing hordes of hungry tourists.

Unfortunately, all good things like that end up having people with different priorities, and eventually the association started to control the name of Utsunomiya and a lot of our salespeople who used to sell our products as Utsunomiya gyza were not allowed to do that anymore. The association started to say the name should only be used in Utsunomiya and not around the country, whereas our business is promoting it all across the country.

We just had very different paths that we ultimately took, so yeah, were not part of the association anymore.

Without discussing specific issues, Kawazu of the gyza association says these rules are aimed at controlling quality and to prevent outside makers from using the brand to lure customers.

Utsunomiya gyza is such a broad term that it makes it difficult to trace who the producer is when issues surface if its used indiscriminately.

Dumplings are universal, as seen in their many variations, including the South Asian samosa and momo, and European pierogi and ravioli, says Izumi Kitta, a voice actress and gyza specialist who also serves as a special ambassador for Utsunomiya gyza.

So, in a sense, it was only natural for it to acquire comfort food status in Japan, she says, adding that she believes Utsunomiyas public relations campaign helped raise its national prominence.

Kitta, who is currently studying in the United Kingdom, says there were times she would eat gyza three times a day back in Japan. I think I was eating around 400 meals of gyza in 365 days, she says. Now that she lives in England, she goes out hunting for restaurants serving gyza and hosts gyza parties with friends. It made me want to spread the gospel of gyza across the world, she says.

Gyza has come a long way from its humble beginnings to become firmly embedded in Japans culinary psyche. For Hisashi and Ayako Kuwano, their encounter with gyza was life-changing.

Hisashi, 82, met Ayako, 84, when he was employed as a chef at a Japanese restaurant in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. The two soon fell in love and ran off together to Tokyo, where Hisashi hopped around eateries. They ran a food stall, and at one point even cruised around the capital selling fish on a bicycle, but decided to settle down in Tochigi Prefecture, where Hisashi hails from, when their daughter was born.

The couple opened a restaurant in Utsunomiya in 1963 that served popular standard fare such as ramen and chhan fried rice. One of the regulars was a factory manager for Utsunomiya-based ice cream maker Futaba Foods Co. who suggested the restaurant serve frozen gyza dumplings Futaba was making to compensate for the fall in ice cream sales during the winter season.

However, Futaba would halt the production of frozen gyza once spring came, so we decided to make our own to satisfy our customers needs, Ayako says. The couples gyza was a hit, and they eventually began selling them to other restaurants, and later established a factory.

It wasnt all smooth sailing, however, and at one point the business was on the verge of collapsing when the price of cabbage soared.

We fell from the mountaintop to the bottom of the canyon, Ayako says. My husband suggested we get a divorce so I wont have to be burdened by debt, but I couldnt imagine my family being separated. In the end, we somehow managed to crawl back up.

The business persevered, and the number of employees grew. Albert, a California native, married the Kuwanos daughter in 1997 and later took over the gyza business.

I think my father-in-law stumbled upon the perfect product because gyza has every major food group you get your carbs, protein, vegetables and it happens to taste very good, Albert says. Its very satisfying but not expensive, so it kind of hits every point.

In 2012, Kuwano launched a craft beer importing business called AQ Bevolution, and opened the Titans Craft Beer Taproom & Bottle Shop in Tokyos Otsuka neighborhood to showcase the beer the company imports and, guess what? AQ Foods gyza.

We have our gyza and beer at one location, Kuwano says. And, as you may know, gyza and beer go well together.

The laid-back American may be an unlikely heir to a Japanese family-run gyza business, but Ayako and Hisashi appreciate his efforts to keep the company going despite the occasional ups and downs.

Asked whether he had any reservations having a foreign national marry their only daughter, Hisashi shakes his head.

Really? Ive heard you didnt want her to marry a gangster or a foreigner, Albert quips.

Hmm, perhaps, Hisashi says with a grin, his eyes wandering as if to recall a distant memory. However, he doesnt forget to add, Were grateful to have you.

Read the rest here:

Food for the soul: Traditional gyza makers and eaters in Utsunomiya try to keep the dumplings rolling - The Japan Times