Katsuo no Tenpaku

Katsuo no Tenpaku

Katsuo no Tenpaku (かつおの天ぱく) is a maker of dried bonito on Cape Daio, looking over the Pacific in Nakiri, Daiocho, Shima City, Mie Prefecture, whose main house and workshop, both of 1951, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on October 31, 2022 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Kanko Mie, the prefectural tourism site, says that Nakiri has long been a centre of dried-bonito making and that Katsuo no Tenpaku still smokes its Nakiri-bushi by the traditional tebiyama method. The main house is placed so that fish landed at Nakiri harbour can be processed at once (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Two Buildings

The main house is a single-storey gabled building set below the cliff and the road, with vertical board walls against the wind; one small room now displays the products (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The workshop is a two-storey smoking hut and a mould room under a broad roof that spans the work area next to the house. The kiln has its firebed below ground, and the moulds living in the closed mould room decide the flavour (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Home and workshop together keep a fishing-village trade alive on one plot. Each building is described on its own page.

Visiting

According to the official site, tours of the smoking hut are by reservation only, at least five days ahead (excluding weekends and holidays); they last one to one and a half hours, starting at 11:00 and 13:00 from October to May and at 10:00 from June to September. Kanko Mie gives the access as a Sanco bus from Ugata Station on the Kintetsu line to Daiozaki Todai, then about 10 minutes on foot.