When traveling through Okinawa, you may come across fields of sugarcane swaying in the wind, their leaves green and fragrant with sweetness. Or vivid purple sweet potatoes at the local market, or wild fuchiba growing along the roadside. These are the “original landscapes” of Okinawa — ingredients that have sustained the island’s food culture for generations. And every one of them is part of what Kibimaru pigs eat.
■ What They Eat Becomes the Meat
Three factors determine the taste of pork: bloodline, environment, and feed. Among these, feed directly shapes the flavor and quality of the fat.
Standard pig feed is a compound mix based on corn. Designed for efficient growth, it produces consistent quality — but at the cost of individuality. No matter where the pigs are raised, the meat ends up tasting much the same.
Fukumaru Farm chose the opposite approach.
Create a flavor unique to Okinawa, using ingredients found only in Okinawa. After more than six years of trial and error, they arrived at a proprietary feed blend made from sugarcane molasses, purple sweet potato (beniimo), and two medicinal herbs — fuchiba (mugwort) and chomeiso (long-life grass).
■ What These Three Ingredients Do to the Meat
Sugarcane molasses gives the fat a mellow sweetness and depth. Unrefined molasses is rich in minerals and organic acids, producing not just sweetness but a complex, layered flavor. The elegant sweetness of Kibimaru’s fat comes from here.
Purple sweet potato (beniimo) has a softening effect on the meat. The compounds in this vivid purple tuber are also said to enhance the whiteness of the fat, contributing to the meat’s visual beauty.
Fuchiba and chomeiso are plants long used as medicinal herbs in Okinawa. They suppress the gamey odor typical of pork and, through their antibacterial and antioxidant properties, help keep the pigs healthy. This is one reason why Kibimaru Pork has so little odor and produces almost no scum when cooked.
■ The Landscape Becomes the Flavor
Those sugarcane fields you saw on your drive. The beniimo you picked up at the Naha market. The fuchiba growing wild in Okinawa’s fields.
All of it passes through the pig and becomes the taste of the meat.
“You are what you eat” doesn’t apply only to humans. What Kibimaru pigs eat isn’t something manufactured in a factory — it’s ingredients born from this island’s soil. Perhaps that’s why, when you take a bite, something in the flavor resonates with your memories of traveling through Okinawa.
A single dish eaten at a tourist destination, connecting with the landscape and staying in your heart. That’s exactly the kind of food experience SEE THE SEA wants to deliver — and one of the reasons we chose Kibimaru Pork.
— Also Read —
Previous: Fat That Melts at 30°C
Next: Why We Chose Kibimaru Pork
■ あわせて読みたい