Fifth Annual Tsukemono Festival Is Hosted by Watsonville

The Watsonville Buddhist Temple hosted the fifth annual Tsukemono Festival on March 1.

This event, which held its first-ever gathering in 2003, was originally organized by Tom and Kevin Nagata with the mission of “Preservation and continuation of this cultural delicacy for generations to come.”

Following a 19-year hiatus, Rev. Blake Honda and I worked with the Central California Young Buddhist Association and the members at the Buddhist Church of Fowler to hold the second annual event in November 2022. We have since held one at Cortez Buddhist Church and another in Fowler before bringing it to Watsonville earlier this year. 

To prepare for the festival, we put out a call to the Sangha for tsukemono entries. To keep registration accessible, we decided not to have any preregistration. We were surprised to have 26 entries on the day of the event, including one by Rev. Hibiki Murakami, who dropped off his entry, “My Special Cucumber,” on the way to lead the Sunday service at the Buddhist Temple of Salinas. 

As the table filled with plates of colorful pickles, we asked the tsukemono chefs to name their entries. Many were named after the person who provided the recipe like “Carol’s Daikon” and “Tochan’s Tsukemono.” “Lei’d Back Kyuris” featured a recipe from a friend from Hawaii. 

Mark Nakata, an original tsukemono festival organizer from Visalia, reached out to his mother, Janet Nakata, from the Orange County Buddhist Church, for advice, and she provided both the recipe and the name “I Shoyu My Radish.”

Each plate of tsukemono was accompanied by a label that included its name and a description about the entry that helped illustrate the cultural and community connections preserved within each jar. Some recipes were special because they evoked family memories: “This is the tsukemono that my father would make for me when I came home from college.”

Others highlighted a culture of giving: “The person who made this won’t eat tsukemono (she hates it!) but she will make this for her family and friends.”

The Watsonville Sangha provided rice balls to eat with the tsukemono. With 26 entries, it was challenging to keep them all straight. Some people arranged each piece around the center rice ball and numbered them, like a colorful tsukemono clock. Everyone received 10 tickets and voted for their favorites. 

After the votes were tallied, we announced the winners. The third-place winner was Watsonville local, Mitsuyo Tao, with her "Nasu no Karashi-zuke” (Eggplant marinated in mustard sauce). Hisako Kodama, another Watsonville local, won second place with “Mrs. Kodama’s Fukujintsuke.” 

The first-place winners tied with 57 votes each. 

Mallory Shiroyama, from the Palo Alto Buddhist Temple, won with her entry, “Tomi’s Cucumber Tsukemono,” a recipe from Tomi Harada from the Visalia Buddhist Church. The description read, “Tomi was my Grandma Aki’s best friend and a great cook! She made sure to write down and preserve all her delicious recipes before she passed.”

Kini and Kyle Tan entered and won with “Nana’s Tsukudani,” which was from their great-grandmother’s cookbook. This was a special event for them because Kyle Tan’s grandfather, Rev. Junjo Tsumura, served as the Resident Minister in Watsonville from 1956-1972. They were excited to bring their 2-year-old son, Taiki, to Watsonville for the first time to see his great-grandfather’s picture on the wall in the Hondo and taste this winning recipe from his great-great-grandmother.

The honorable mention award went to the Mountain View Narazuke Makers for their narazuke entry — a favorite of many, including BCA Minister Emeritus Rev. Jay Shinseki, the former Resident Minister at Watsonville, Salinas and Monterey Peninsula.

This amazing group of tsukemono makers worked together with Mountain View Buddhist Temple members to revive the art of making narazuke.

Donna Okubo said by making and sharing their narazuke, it “became more than food. It became memory — shared across generations. A reminder that traditions endure not because they are written down, but because someone chooses to continue them.” 

Overall, the event was a great success. We couldn’t have done it without the Watsonville Buddhist Temple board and Sangha, financial support from Yonsei Memory Project, and help from volunteers from Central California Young Buddhist Association and Bitter Cotyledons, a farming collective from Santa Cruz.

It was wonderful to have the event in the Coast District for the first time, and we hope to rotate between several locations moving forward. The next event will be at the Oxnard Buddhist Temple from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 29. 

For more information, please visit: bit.ly/4ez9Zrd or email tsukemonofestival@gmail.com.