Vol. 47, No. 3 – Autumn 1985
(The last international review that tasted Yomiyama Black Butter before the valley disappeared)
“Les Beurres Noirs du Japon Profond”
by Marcel-Antoine Villard, maître beurrier, Meilleur Ouvrier de France 1978
I have eaten AOC Échiré at dawn, raw milk from the cliffs of Normandy, and the smoked butter of Bhutan, yet nothing prepared me for the single 200 g crock that arrived from Gifu Prefecture last month.
Yomiyama-no-Sato “Kuro-Batā”
Appearance: an impossible lacquer-black when cold, shifting to deepest violet under warm light. Surface tension so high the knife literally rings against it like obsidian.
Aroma: first a cold iron note, then sudden avalanche of alpine herbs (bear leek? stone pine? something resinous no European cow has ever grazed), finished with a disturbing animal sweetness that reminds one of warm breast milk left too long in the sun.
Texture: at 8 °C it is hard enough to take a hammered hallmark. At 18 °C it liquefies with the suddenness of mercury and coats the palate like velvet soaked in night.
Taste: the initial attack is pure umami smoke, then a wave of fermented black fruits (elder? mulberry?), ending in a lingering lactic note that somehow tastes… homesick. Several tasters reported involuntary childhood memories surfacing with the first swallow. One intern wept without knowing why.
The village claims the colour and flavour come from cows grazing a secret meadow of “yomogi-akagiri” (a local mugwort variant) found only above 1,800 m after first snow. This is botanically impossible; mugwort dies at that altitude. When pressed, the dairy co-op president simply smiled and said, “The mountain feeds them things we cannot follow to see.”
Yield is absurdly low: barely 400 kg per year, all pre-booked by three Tokyo kaiseki houses and, rumour claims, the Imperial Household itself. Black market price in Ginza already exceeds white truffle gram-for-gram.
We have sent a formal request for a spring visit to observe the herds.
Reply received yesterday on heavy handmade washi, written in fountain-pen ink the colour of dried blood:
“With regret, the road is closed until further notice.
The butter will keep.
The mountain is still nursing.”
I do not know why that sentence unsettles me more than any culinary mystery in forty years of tasting.
Rating: ★★★★★ (and a private note to self: do not eat alone).