AP PHOTOS: 172-year-old Japanese factory preserves traditional way of making cast iron cookware

OSHU, Japan — Katsunori Suzuki is one of the few artisans in Japan who still produces cast iron cookware by hand using laborious 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 much more to produce.

Suzuki uses wet sand and a few other ingredients to make the molds using a method called “tegome” or “hand filling.” He spends hours tamping the sand into an iron frame to compress it just the right amount to create the mold, into which he carves detailed designs for the vessel.

When the mold is ready, Suzuki finds cast iron buckets and hurried them back to his work space so that the temperature remains at about 1,450 degrees Celsius (2,462 degrees Fahrenheit) when it is poured into the mold.

Once the iron cools and solidifies, the sand mold is broken into pieces with a hammer and the kitchen utensils are removed. Extraneous pieces are cut.

Suzuki, 59, who has worked at the Oigen cast iron foundry for 40 years, follows the same process to make a mold for a smaller piece of cookware, such as a lid. Making a pot and a lid takes you a whole day.

In the following days, the kitchen utensils, still raw, will be sent to other workers who remove the smallest burrs, polish the surface and bake them at high temperatures to make them resistant to rust.

In addition to the strength and dexterity required to make the molds, the traditional method requires experience in conditioning the sand with just the right amount of moisture to suit the weather conditions.

At the end of the day, Suzuki waters down the sand that was used for the mold to begin reconditioning it to make new molds.

Kuniko Oikawa, president of Oigen, said the traditional tegome method is considered inefficient and expensive, and most foundries have abandoned it. Instead, they use molds made of other materials and mechanize the pouring of cast iron for mass production.

Like the other foundries, the Oigen factory until recently only had a mechanized production line. Oikawa, however, did not want the traditional method to disappear.

The fifth president of the family business, founded in 1852 in Iwate Prefecture near the iron-rich Kitakami Mountains of northeastern Japan, decided to revive the tegome method after speaking with a retired craftsman who still knew how to make it. . The area is famous for cast iron products, the techniques of which are believed to have been introduced more than 900 years ago.

Oikawa said he doesn’t know anyone else currently 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 is still working in a foundry that uses tegome,” he said.

“It will just be history once it’s gone. Instead of prioritizing the economy, we want to respect our predecessors who preserved the cast iron trade. We also believe there is something new and creative in it,” he stated.

In 2022, Oikawa created a new brand, Mugu, to offer high-end cast iron pots designed by an artist who has been at the Oigen foundry for over 50 years. The name is derived from the local pronunciation of the Japanese word muku, which means pure.

Suzuki is training Seksuk Suebsai, a Thai national who began learning Tegome after moving to the area in 2023. Suzuki, Seksuk and a few others make the sand molds for the Mugu pots.

Mugu pots cost between $337 and $374, compared to $224 for Oigen’s most expensive machine-made pot. They are available on the Mugu website or at the Oigen factory store.

“They are pure because they are made from the goodness of iron,” Oikawa said. “Since they come from Iwate Prefecture, I wanted to put the nature and climate of Iwate into the iron. That’s why I chose the local pronunciation of mugu instead of muku. .”