Here, Emi Kinjo runs a restaurant known as Emi no Mise (Emi’s Place), which she set up in 1990 with the aim of preserving Okinawan culinary culture – in the face of a head-on attack by massed ranks of burgers and Spam.
‘We have a motto here in Okinawa – ishoku-dogen. It means, eat well, live well. The idea comes from Oriental medicine, which focuses on the prevention of diseases rather than the taking of remedies after you have become ill. It means that we think of the medicinal effects of the most basic daily diet.’
Key to Kinjo’s menu are freshly picked local vegetables. ‘It’s important to eat lots of these,’ she adds, ‘Shikuwasa is the one that I think is very special to Okinawa. It is the only citrus fruit that is indigenous and we eat lots of them. We squeeze it over salads and fish and put it in sauces and dressings. It’s an indispensable part of our cooking.’
So far, so healthy; so is the dreaded Spam banned in these parts? ‘Well, I would never serve it in the restaurant, but it does have a special place in the heart of Okinawans,’ says Kinjo.
‘After World War II we had been starving for years, the war finished and the Americans gave us pork in a can. It seemed like an amazing luxury after years of no meat and food shortages. Even after the war we had no food as farming land had been wrecked in the Battle of Okinawa. We relied on the Americans for years for food. Spam became entrenched in our diet.’
Even today, Kinjo keeps a can or two at home. ‘If a young relative comes round after sports practice I can whip him up a quick champuru (stir-fry) using fresh vegetables and a bit of Spam. I rarely go to supermarkets, with the Spam in the cupboard I have an instant meal just by adding vegetables from my garden. But it is high in fat so I don’t think it should be eaten too often.’
The village’s secrets of longevity may not, however, be reliant on diet alone. Most of Ogimi’s residents are elderly women living by themselves, but far from being a recipe for loneliness, this appears to be a situation in which the occupants thrive.
‘Here in Ogimi we have the ocean on one side and mountains on the other. There’s no room to build more houses and to start more vegetable gardens. So the young people have to move to places like the Yaeyama islands, [400 kilometres south west of Naha].
I watched a documentary movie about this. It is really amazing to know that many of them reach the age of 90s and they are still physically fit.