Kanten, the first food made in Japan

A visit to a producer to learn more about this seaweed jelly

I first visited Chino, Nagano, in the autumn of 2022 and stayed in a beautiful, restored Japanese farmhouse where we met a woman from the village who gave us a cooking lesson of local dishes. Among the ingredients she used were freeze dried ingredients from Chino, namely tofu, daikon and kanten that are naturally preserved in the area's very cold, dry w…