When I think of “World Heritage”, I picture palaces that have stood atop great hills for thousands of years, magnificent landscapes that can only be seen by hopping from planes->buses->pop pop boats, or religious relics that are so crowded you keep knocking heads with the woman next to you holding a selfie stick.

In 2013, traditional Japanese cuisine was registered as an Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO.

“Huh?”

I bet, many people couldn’t believe their ears. They must have said confounded, “So the food culture that I grew up with is in the same ranks as the Taj Mahal or the Shirakami Mountain Range?”

Yes, that’s right. I didn’t even know the difference between “World Heritage” and “Intangible Cultural Heritage”. Even reporters will introduce them basically lumped together as “World Heritage”, so there is no doubt there are still a lot of people out there who get them mixed-up. SUSHI, RAMEN and TEMPURA are not “World Heritage”. And you won’t find helicopter footage of salmon roe and tuna sushi circling on a conveyor belt being aired on a Japanese national news documentary.

Traditional Japanese food has been honored with a prestigious award and, with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics coming up it would be regrettable if such an opportunity were not seized. But what could I possibly do? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get people around the world to fall in love with not only Japan, but “Japanese food”, as well. I want visitors from overseas to eat delicious and proper Japanese food. I’d even want those visitors to take the flavors of Japan back and share their deliciousness with the people of their home country.

One evening, I was alone at a shabby local yakitori shop enjoying my favorite brains (salt-flavored) and skin (sauce-flavored) with some early Autumn Hiyaoroshi, when the idea suddenly hit me.

“Why not make a delicious yakitori sauce?”

That’s it. “Tare“.

The great thing about yakitori is, “It is fare that can be eaten by most people around the world.” Around the world there are many people who cannot eat beef or pork for religious reasons, and there are many people who cannot eat certain kinds of seafood. There are also many people who do not have the sufficient means to eat. When considering all that, the most readily available dish would have to be, yes, chicken. These days, even food that is “halal” (meat that has been prepared in accordance with strict Muslim laws) is readily produced in Japan. Jewish Kosher certification may prove more difficult, but there is no doubt that the availability of delicious chicken meat that has cleared such religious restrictions will increase. Another great thing about yakitori is that, unlike sushi or tempura, as long as you have “chicken”, “flames” and a “skewer”, you could probably make something that tastes just as good anywhere around the world.

Yet another great thing about yakitori is that, “It is fare that you can eat anywhere in Japan.” As I spent my days making my rounds to different yakitori shops, it made me think that the number of “yakitori shops + bars and restaurants that served yakitori” had to outnumber the number of “convenience stores”.

Apart from the severely underpopulated areas, you can almost always find at least one or two yakitori shops near even remote train stations (even unattended stations or ones with no convenience stores nearby). When at a train terminal, try searching “yakitori” on Google Maps and you won’t be able to count the number of shops there are because your entire screen will be flush with red pushpins. That’s right. Japan is more than well-equipped to provide foreign visitors with an environment for eating yakitori. Furthermore, although there are, of course, differences in flavors between fancy shops and your run-of-the-mill yakitori shop, unlike ramen and sushi, there is less hit and miss. Not only that, because there are cheap, crazy-delicious shops scattered all over Japan, the risk of visitors being exposed to “unauthentic Japanese flavors” is extremely low.

Based on that rationale, I’m led to the conclusion that… If I could create a “dream tare” that would turn any chicken meat into savory yakitori… Maybe I could generate an explosive increase in the number of Japanese “YAKITORI” fans around the world. Some of you may argue that “salt-flavored” yakitori is just as good. However, I’d like you to consider this – When faced with differences in the quality of the meat itself, compared to “salt”, there is far less discrepancy in the end-product flavor when it comes to “tare”. First of all, “salt” does not evoke “Japaneseness”. Furthermore, if you think about how “teriyaki” is a flavor that has already been adapted into American culture, it is obvious that the taste of sweet soy sauce will be popular in the West in. And it’d be hard to believe that any Asian cultures would completely reject a soy sauce-based tare. Are you convinced yet that yakitori has the hidden potential to become as renowned around the world as sushi and ramen?

Beginning around the summer of 2014, I started a routine of visiting yakitori shops each week, tasting and savoring the characteristics of each tare. There are bitter, but light tare; and there are sweet, thick tare, as well. There are tare of a dark color resembling blackstrap molasses, and there are light amber-colored tare. Tare. Requiring nothing more than soy sauce, sugar and mirin (sweet rice wine). The ingredients and recipe of which create a unique flavor that is almost beyond imagination. Long-established shops have orchestrated the interplay of mature and complex flavors for… Tare. Days upon days were spent burning those flavors into my mildly intoxicated mind.

Back at home… Prototype No. 1, No. 10, No. 20… Recently, I’ve been getting closer to “a tare that tastes a little better than an awful yakitori shop” (to me, at least). At the same time, I’ve also learned that preparing a tare was a lot more demanding than I had expected. Not only that, when I considered how many countless shops around Japan served yakitori at 100 yen or less, I was reminded of how refined Japanese food culture is and how incredibly talented the chefs of “Japanese cuisine” are.

I am still only at the stage of walking around taste-testing or developing new prototypes in my kitchen at home, but luckily for me, I have a circle of friends who are in the food product development industry, are restaurant chefs or are otherwise gourmets. With the help of these friends, I intend to continue pursuing this project (that is really nothing more than making a tare) and transform my wild idea in to a reality by 2020.

With visions in my head of Paris bistros, white nights, Middle Eastern deserts and African villages where people are enjoying delicious yakitori, I will be ducking in the doorway of yet another yakitori shop tonight. (Even though I’m a narrator.)