Mar
29
Haruki Murakami’s taste for Galician-style octopus
Filed Under EN
Editor’s note: Shinji Inada, former Paris bureau chief of The Asahi Shimbun, originally wrote this article for The Asahi Shimbun Digital website to depict the literary and culinary links between internationally acclaimed writer Haruki Murakami and a Spanish town.
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SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain–I visited the restaurant here where Haruki Murakami had dinner when he visited the city to accept a literary award and ordered the same traditional Galician octopus dish “Polbo a feira” that he would later endorse.
Imitating the locals, I put octopus meat on a toothpick and brought it to my mouth. I experienced the “melt-in-your-mouth” softness of the octopus together with the salty sweetness of paprika. The taste of coarse salt was softly enveloped by the fresh aroma of olive oil.
I could see why the internationally celebrated writer professed a liking for the dish, and also why he wished to prolong his stay here.
In the spring of 2009, Murakami visited Santiago de Compostela, the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia in northwestern Spain.
The city is known as the destination of major Catholic pilgrimage routes dating to the medieval period.
The city’s Premio San Clemente writing competition is unique in that its winners are selected by high school students including those at Rosalia de Castro school, which is located close to a fabled cathedral. The award’s jury for the best novel written in a foreign language chose Murakami’s “Kafka en la orilla” (“Kafka on the Shore”) as the winner and invited this reputed author, who is popular in Spain as well, to attend the awards ceremony.
The award was created in 1993 under the initiative of Ubaldo Rueda, principal of the Rosalia de Castro high school, who has a strong passion for literature. The local government and businesses provide support for the award.
Although the prize money is only 3,000 euros (420,000 yen, or $4,100), many of the past winners, including Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, who was the first writer to win the award, and other literary luminaries, have come to the city to accept it. That’s possibly because they liked the way the winners are chosen through free discussions among high school students.
But the students found it a challenge to contact the reclusive author.
The school first sought the cooperation of the publisher of the Spanish-language version of “Kafka on the Shore” but didn’t receive a positive response. So it went to a local Toyota dealer and asked for help in contacting the Japanese writer. Impressed by the students’ enthusiasm, a sales representative at the Toyota dealer sought assistance from Japan via the carmaker’s unit in Madrid. The dealer successfully obtained the e-mail address of Murakami’s secretary on behalf of the students.
Maribel Martin Misol, the teacher at the high school in charge of the award ceremony, sent an e-mail describing the students’ desires and wishes to the secretary. The school immediately received a reply from Murakami agreeing to attend the ceremony. Due to the writer’s tight schedule, however, the students had to wait a year before they could welcome him to their school.
Galicia is known for its Galician-style octopus dish. This simple dish is prepared by first boiling the octopus, caught in the cold seas off Galicia, and then cutting it into round slices while it is still hot. The slices are sprinkled with coarse salt and paprika (pemento picante) and drizzled with olive oil as they are served on wooden plates, sometimes along with sliced boiled potatoes (cachelos) and bread.
It is said that octopus first became a popular food in Galicia in the Middle Ages. Records exist saying that the monastery of Oseira in Galicia, which also has land in coastal areas, accepted fresh octopus from local fishermen as payment for taxes in the 12th century. Historians say people in coastal areas in Galicia used to dry newly caught octopus in the sun for four to five days and sell it in inland towns and villages where there was strong demand for preserved food.
Perhaps a legacy from those eras, octopus festivals are today held in various parts of Galicia, mainly in the summer. In such festivals, merchants called the “arcos pulpeiras” (specialist octopus sellers and cooks) boil 200 to 300 kilograms of octopus in a huge copper cauldron every day and serve it to local residents.
The day before the long-awaited awards ceremony, Murakami had dinner with Rueda and Misol at the restaurant in a hotel next to the cathedral. Murakami enjoyed Polbo a feira (Galician name literally meaning “fair style octopus”) for the first time. During his speech at the awards ceremony, the author said he had taken a liking to the dish and the town.
“This morning, I jogged along the stream,” he said. “It was a very delightful experience. I wish I could stay for a while here, Santiago de Compostela. I like the octopus dish.”
Javier Cereijo, a 24-year-old university student, attended the awards ceremony as a member of the jury and spoke with Murakami during the dinner.
“Murakami was a very pleasant and a little bashful person,” Cereijo said. “Even though he is such a famous writer, he showed respect for a young man like me and spoke about Japan and his new novel (“1Q84”). I majored in physics, but my encounter with Murakami’s works awoke me to the pleasure of writing.”
“The delicious taste of our local octopus dish was endorsed by Murakami, the writer with a global reputation,” Rueda said. “I believe something truly local is also global. Even children born in a small local town can realize their dreams if only they have the will to do so. That’s the message I want this small literary prize to embody.”
Rueda went on to say, “Gabriel Garcia Marquez had to wait for many years until he was finally awarded the Nobel Prize while being considered a strong candidate. Murakami is still young. There is no doubt that he is a writer worthy of a Nobel.”
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