Interviewed Apr. 9, 2015.<\/em><\/p>\nSo tell me about yourself, where are you from?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m from New Jersey in the US, and I\u2019ve been in Japan for about eight and a half years. I originally went to school to study philosophy and when I got out of there I couldn\u2019t find any jobs that require a philosophy degree so ended up going back to school in New Jersey to study computers. That\u2019s where I met my wife, who is from Kasuga City in Fukuoka, and she\u2019s the reason I moved out here. I have an associates degree in network engineering and I\u2019m also a certified PC technician, so that\u2019s my background. I was interested in Japan when I was young, though. I was very much into anime and manga and I was also interested in history. With history I tended to gravitate towards Asian histories, including Japan\u2019s, and I actually minored in that alongside philosophy.<\/p>\n![\"InFukuoka197](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/InFukuoka197-007.jpg?resize=512%2C768\")
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Did you get married in the States?<\/strong>
\nMy wife actually came back here when she finished her studies, so I came over with her for three months, to get a feel for Japan and so that we could spend more time together. After a brief return to the US, I came back to Japan and we got married here in Fukuoka.<\/p>\nHow did you end up in a kitchen cooking noodles?<\/strong>
\nWhen I first moved here, I didn\u2019t have any kind of employment lined up at all. My paperwork had gone through, my visa had come, and I had to use it within a certain window. So I moved to Fukuoka where I found out that NOVA was hiring. I applied there and got the job, but after two days I decided it wasn\u2019t for me, it wasn\u2019t the kind of job I wanted. I equated it to sweatshop English, the way they structured the work day and the lessons. So, two days later I said, \u2018no way, I can\u2019t do this\u2019 and a week or two later they were shut down by the government for not paying their teachers *laughs* so I wouldn\u2019t have had a job anyway.<\/p>\nMeanwhile, my wife and I were customers at this udon shop that we lived not too far from. Every time I\u2019d come to eat, the shop owner would be like, \u2018you need a job, why not come and work for me?\u2019 He\u2019d actually had a couple of foreigners before me, a guy from China and a French-Canadian guy who had just stopped working a couple of months earlier. So yeah, he asked whether I wanted to learn how to make Udon and after I quit at NOVA my wife said to me, \u2018you have nothing better to do, take the job!\u2019<\/p>\n
So i thought I\u2019d give it a try and see how I liked it.. that was seven and a half years ago.<\/p>\n
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And were you a cook at all before that?<\/strong>
\nNo, I\u2019d worked in the produce section at a supermarket and I\u2019d had some blue collar type work, but I\u2019d never worked in a kitchen.<\/p>\nDid you ever cook at home..?<\/strong>
\nI cooked at home a bit, and I used to bake a lot – cookies and cakes. Some people back home ask, \u2018you do what for a living? you make noodles? what is that like? how did you get that job?\u2019 When I describe the work to them they always say, \u2018ohh, I don\u2019t know if I could do that\u2019. The methods used here are probably very different to those used in the US. In the US, even doing stuff by hand would be much more automated than it is here.<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s the most satisfying part of your job?<\/strong>
\nI would probably have to say the most satisfying part is working in my little room with all its windows and having the people walking by and interacting with me. I have a lot of elementary school kids walking past the window and they\u2019ll do Jan Ken Pon (Rock, Paper, Scissors) with me through the window.<\/p>\nSo you\u2019re a bit of a character?<\/strong>
\nYeah, it\u2019s not just making noodles, it\u2019s a bit of a performance art at times.<\/p>\nYou\u2019ve been doing it for seven years, is there progression?<\/strong>
\nOh yeah, I\u2019m a much better noodle maker than I was. At first, my noodles were atrocious, my boss would look at it and say \u2018ohh, that\u2019s very nice, very good.. take it home.\u2019 He couldn\u2019t use them in his shop. I was taking home so many noodles that I started giving them to friends and family, I couldn\u2019t keep up with the eating. I was literally begging people to take them off me. It took me maybe three months before I got to the point where my noodles could actually be used in the shop. They weren\u2019t perfect, but they were useable at least.<\/p>\nBut even in the last year or two I\u2019ve progressed, from ingredients to noodles I\u2019ve become more consistent and much quicker. It\u2019s almost second nature now. If it\u2019s humid I know to cut back on this ingredient, or if its cold I know I need to turn up the heat on the storage box a little. It\u2019s become much easier for me to gauge these things on my own, rather than having to go to my boss and ask what to do.<\/p>\n
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Tell us about the challenges of making udon.<\/strong>
\nWork related injuries are definitely a challenge. It\u2019s very repetitive work.. very physically repetitive, so I have to keep myself in check and keep aware of how my body is feeling every day because it can be pretty draining.<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s your day to day?<\/strong>
\nI come in most days at noon, and at noon we\u2019re just getting into the swing of the lunchtime rush. If it\u2019s a day where I have to actually mix the dough, the first thing I do is mix in the water to the flour because the dough needs time to set before you can work it. If we have already have a lot of noodles made, then I\u2019ll work in the kitchen – I do a lot of the donburi. But if we\u2019re short on the noodles, the first thing I do after I\u2019ve mixed in the water is to roll and cut noodles from the dough made the day before. After about an hour of doing that, I\u2019ll go back to that morning\u2019s dough and start kneading it, which is a very time consuming process and takes most of the day. There are several stages and each take about an hour. So, if I start at noon, I\u2019ll maybe finish at six or six thirty, with the dough ready to be rolled and cut into noodles the next morning.<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s it like being a foreigner working in a Japanese restaurant like this?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s an interesting experience because it shocks a lot of people. When I first started here, customers would walk in and do a double take. They were so surprised that a foreigner would be working making such a traditional Japanese food. But even more than that, they were surprised that I was doing what is considered by most to be the most important part of the work, making the noodles. I definitely had to get used to all the attention I got from people. I\u2019d studied Japanese a little at school, but I was definitely not ready to be bombarded by customer after customer wanting to talk to me about me – a foreigner making noodles.<\/p>\n![\"InFukuoka197](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/InFukuoka197-009.jpg?resize=640%2C427\")
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Were people impressed?<\/strong>
\nThey were very impressed, very impressed that there was this foreigner doing a job that is considered difficult even for a Japanese person. But here I was, a foreigner doing a job that didn\u2019t have a history or a prevalence in my home culture.<\/p>\nWhat about the opposite, anyone who wouldn\u2019t eat the noodles?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve never experienced that. There was another foreigner who came and worked alongside me for a few days because he was interested in making udon and we jokingly said to my boss that we\u2019d open a new shop across the road that everyone would come to instead because we were foreigners. But he said we\u2019d never beat him because we were not Japanese. So there was that.<\/p>\nAny other funny episodes?<\/strong>
\nWe used to have an English study party on Monday nights after the shop had closed. I was helping my boss with his English homework and that rapidly evolved into English homework with drinks and food. Then a few of his classmates started coming along and soon we had a dozen people. We really wouldn\u2019t study English at all until we were three sheets to the wind. It\u2019s actually a tradition that has continued – but without me – a local assistant language teacher has become the new ringleader. Some of those evenings were the funniest in the shop.<\/p>\nRamen is becoming popular around the globe, how about udon?<\/strong>
\nI think one of the appeals of ramen is that its kinda quick and easy. You see the dried instant noodles everywhere and the exposure it has is much, much greater. I\u2019ve seen udon at a few restaurants back home, but I\u2019ve not been impressed with it and its usually outrageously priced. That could be changed with the right kind of marketing and expertise, but you\u2019d need the right person. My boss has often told me that I should take our shop to America and make it the Udon equivalent of Ippudo.<\/p>\n![\"InFukuoka197](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/InFukuoka197-011.jpg?resize=640%2C427\")
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What are your future plans or dreams?<\/strong>
\nMy wife is kind of set on living here in Japan, so my future is more than likely going to be set here too. I don\u2019t have a lot of marketable skills in Japan, other than my English and udon making. So, at least for the time being, my plans are to continue with what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\nYou\u2019ve had various media reports on you already, what kind of reports?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s mostly been television. It all started when Barack Obama was voted President for the first time – the first black President. My boss said we had to capitalise on it, so how about making a black noodle? We experimented with a lot of other colours and flavours at the same time, but the black one really caught on and we got a lot of media coverage from that. And then, more recently, NHK started its Fukuoka based Taiga drama based on Kanbei Kuroda. That inspired us to start making a black soup. We thought a black udon, black soup, black bowl meal would be very surprising for customers so we named it the Kuroda Bikuri – black surprise – udon after Kanbei Kuroda. We still sell it today.<\/p>\nWere yours the first black udon?<\/strong>
\nNot as far as I\u2019m aware, but ours took off in a way that maybe others haven\u2019t. The blackness comes from a bamboo based charcoal powder, you need only a tiny amount to give the noodles and soup this extremely black consistency.<\/p>\nAny pro tips for foreigners to enjoy udon?<\/strong>
\nSlurp your udon, it actually helps to cool it. Even if it feels unnatural and rude, do it. It\u2019ll improve your enjoyment tremendously. If you have any kind of thick curry sauce, use the spoon, called a renge<\/em>, otherwise you\u2019re going to make a mess. Also, keep an open mind, make sure you try all those odd looking things on the menu, because otherwise you\u2019ll miss out on a huge amount.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This month\u2019s edition of In Fukuoka catches up with Rob Kolinofsky, originally from New Jersey, USA but now based in Fukuoka\u2019s \u201cKanbei Udon\u201d making udon<\/em> noodles. Widely considered the most important step of any good udon<\/em> dish, Rob has spent seven and a half years perfecting his art, and is a rarity in Japan as one of the few foreigners who have mastered the skill…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_locale":"en_US","_original_post":"60552","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4911],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","location-fukuoka-city","en-US"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/InFukuoka197-0021.jpg?fit=510%2C431&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98326,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73129\/revisions\/98326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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