OSHU, Japan (AP) — Katsunori Suzuki is one of the few artisans in Japan who still makes cast iron cookware using intricate handcrafting and traditional techniques. The president of the 172-year-old foundry where he works says she wants to keep the tradition alive, even if it costs a lot more to make.
Suzuki uses wet sand and a few other ingredients to make the molds using a method called “tegome,” or “hand-tamping.” He spends hours pounding the sand in an iron frame to compact it just enough to create the mold, into which he carves detailed patterns for the pot.
When the mold is ready, Suzuki fetches buckets of molten iron and rushes them back to his work station so that the temperature remains at about 1,450 degrees Celsius (2,462 degrees Fahrenheit) when pouring it into the mold.
After the iron has cooled and solidified, the sand mold is broken into pieces with a hammer and the cookware is removed. Any remnants are cut off.
Suzuki, 59, who has worked at Oigen’s cast iron foundry for 40 years, then follows the same process to make a mold for a smaller cooking utensil, such as a lid. It takes him a full day to make a pot and a lid.
In the following days, the still rough cookware is sent to other workers who grind off smaller burrs, polish the surface and bake it at high temperatures to make it rust-resistant.
In addition to the strength and dexterity required to make the molds, the traditional method also requires experience in adding just the right moisture to the sand according to the weather conditions.
At the end of the day, Suzuki waters the sand used for the mold to begin preparing it for the production of new molds.
Kuniko Oikawa, president of Oigen, said the traditional tegome method was considered inefficient and costly, and most foundries had abandoned it, instead using molds made of other materials and mechanizing the pouring of molten iron for mass production.
Like the other foundries, the Oigen factory had only one mechanized production line until recently. However, Oikawa did not want the traditional method to die out.
The fifth president of the family-owned company, founded in 1852 in Iwate Prefecture near the iron-rich Kitakami Mountains in northeastern Japan, decided to reinstate the Tegome method after speaking to a retired craftsman who still mastered it. The area is famous for cast iron products, techniques believed to have been introduced over 900 years ago.
Oikawa said she doesn’t currently know of anyone else using the Tegome method for cast iron cookware.
“There may be retired cast iron craftsmen who know how to do it, but I don’t know anyone who still works in a foundry that uses Tegome,” she said.
“It will only be history when it no longer exists. Instead of putting economics first, we want to respect our predecessors who preserved the cast iron trade. We also think there is something new and creative,” she said.
In 2022, Oikawa launched a new brand called Mugu to offer high-quality cast iron cooking pots designed by an artist who has worked at the Oigen foundry for over 50 years. The name is derived from the local pronunciation of the Japanese word “muku,” meaning “pure.”
Suzuki trains Seksuk Suebsai, a Thai national who began learning tegome after moving to the area in 2023. Suzuki, Seksuk and several others make the sand molds for the mugu pots.
The Mugu pots cost $337 to $374, compared to $224 for Oigen’s most expensive machine-made pot, and are available from the Mugu website or Oigen’s factory store.
“They are pure because they are made of the highest quality iron,” said Oikawa. “Because they come from Iwate Prefecture, I wanted to bring the wilderness and climate of Iwate into the iron. That’s why I chose the local pronunciation ‘mugu’ instead of ‘muku.'”
