A popular restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, sparked controversy for claiming to dip its delicious pork skewers in a sauce jar that has not been cleaned in over half a century.
Abe-chan, a famous pork skewer eatery in Tokyo’s Azabu Juban shopping district, was recently featured on a popular Japanese television show where it was revealed that one of the secrets to its success was a rather dubious-looking jar covered in a gelatinous mass. Apparently, this was the same sauce jar that pork skewers have been dipped in for the last sixty years, and the dark brown mass around the jar is the sauce that spilled over and hardened over the decades. According to the third-generation owner of Abe-chan, the jar has never been cleaned in the last six decades, which apparently contributes to the rich taste of the sauce.
Instead of cleaning the sauce jar every day, after closing, the staff at Abe-chan simply pours more sauce over the leftovers of the day, which only amplifies its aroma. The congealed mass around the earthen pot of sauce isn’t the most appetizing sight when ordering street food, but for the owners of Abe-chan it is a valuable treasure put on display right next to the charcoal grill.
Abe-chan was reportedly founded in 1933 by the grandfather of the current owner, and the sauce jar has been around since those early days. The tradition of adding to the sauce without actually cleaning the container has been respected by all three generations, and the current owner is convinced that it contributed to the success of the family business.
https://www.odditycentral.com/foods/restaurant-credits-deliciousness-of-pork-skewers-to-sauce-jar-that-hasnt-been-cleaned-in-60-years.html
During the television show, experts were asked about the potential hygiene hazards of simply adding new sauce in a container that hasn’t been cleaned in several decades and one of them said that if the sauce is heat-treated long enough, there shouldn’t be any danger of bacterial contamination. Also, an experiment where clean water was added to a container full of black water 365 times showed that most of the original contents didn’t even exist by the end. So it’s not like the sauce jar actually contains sauce from 60 years ago.
The television program caused quite a stir online, and while some Abe-chan patrons defended the eatery, claiming they had been eating there for years and had never experienced any health problems because of the food, others claimed that the deformed-looking sauce jar posed some serious hygiene concerns.
At the time of this writing, it’s unclear how Abe-chan is handling the criticism of its decades-old tradition. Some sources claim that the owner decided to go on with business as usual despite the controversy, while others say that he cleaned the jar for the first time in 60 years.
Interestingly, Abe-chan isn’t alone in its controversial practice. A few years ago, we featured another Japanese restaurant that had been using the same broth for 65 years, and earlier than that we had featured the noodle soup at Wattana Panich, in Thailand, which had been cooked in the same uncleaned pot for 45 years.
>dirty
🙁
>dirty, Japan
:0
>dirty, japan
🙁
>dirty, EVROPA
_o/
>if the sauce is heat-treated long enough, there shouldn’t be any danger of bacterial contamination
Isn't that how people get botulism?
No, botulism forms in things like improperly canned or jarred goods because it's anoerobic, ie it only grows in low-oxygen environments. You can think of it like this: food goes bad because it's exposed to air and this interacts with contaminants, but even though there exists a way to preserve food by removing air (jarring and canning) doesn't matter; there are OTHER contaminants that thrive in a low-oxygen environment. The world is full of microbes, and they all have their niche.
If the bacteria is coated in layers of sauce that sounds like an anaerobic environment. But toxin wouldn't be able to spread anyway unless you were chiseling away at the old sauce to eat it.
They already said they don't use the old sauce
I guess if you had something like a piece of garlic sealed off by oily sauce.... But the sauce is gonna be salty and sugary as fuark so not even a concern there i dont think.
This
That sauce is probably soy sauce based with sugar in it, both of which are natural preservatives. It looks super nasty but is probably no health risk at all.
I hate the sliteyes so god damn much
they romanticize everything fucking thing they touch, to the point of perversion, and they take pride in such heinous act
Yes, how dare they see anything as having inherent value
Better to consider everything worthless and an empty husk
anon this is fairly common
there's that one place in thailand thats been the same beef soup for 20 years
and there's that one hotdog place in the US that's used the same oil for like 50 years now. their oil is so valuable to their brand that they cool it, pour it back into containers and lock it into a safe every night
>there's that one place in thailand thats been the same beef soup for 20 years
and oden restaurants in japland also use their broth for long periods
all in all, this thread was not needed, this was not news worthy, the nips simply aired this because it was another TV show bullshit to increase their soft power. OP is a fag. we all got baited.
The inside of it looks suHispaniciously clean, however...
I'm curious as to why it took a more rectangular shape.
shape of the area where they place the skewers to cook. any excess that reaches over the cooking area gets cut away or molded back into the sauce growth
They seem to cut them off when they get too big.
I don't think this gelatinous blob of moldy soy sauce is sanitary and it should be scraped off and thrown away. I think whatever is actually inside the pot is probably fine though.
Riker, get the pork
Why not at least clean the part that's outside the container?
This. JFC Japan, get your shit together already tbh.
The cleaning of the jar destroys the flavor
>test the sauce before it's refilled
>test sauce again after a shift
>test the gunk on the outside
if it comes back safe, then okay.
if it comes back unsafe, shut down, or require health warnings.
>NOOO THIS IS A HEALTH VIOLATION DADDY GOVERNMENT HELP ME I CAN'T THINK FOR MYSELF!!!! EVERYTHING NEEDS TO ADHERE TO SET STANDARDS BECAUSE I CAN'T STOP STUFFING MY FACE!!!!
t. Pajeet
P E R P E T U A L S A U C E
This shit is literally how they do soy sauce
where can I buy shoyu with JK braps
gross
I worked for the best pizza place in my hometown when I was in community college. We cleaned the forks and knives but never more than rinsed and scraped the cookware
You guys don't wash your cast iron... Do you?
>rinsed and scraped
>wash
same thing
The heat of the mass cooks the pork
What happens when a chunk of fossilized sauce breaks off the side?
An angel gets its wings.
流石に汚いな
translate it weebs
>they've been doing it for like a hundred years and nobody has gotten fucked up by it
>some homosexuals who don't even eat there see it online and freak out
It's clearly not a problem, you hypochondriacs.