Matsuzaki’s History
Starting from its rise to prosperity as a trading port, largely due to its sheltered cove providing an ideal haven in unfavorable weather. As business flourished, it necessitated the building of the town's many kura for storing commodities until they could be securely transported to Edo. Constructed of a durable timber frame and thick walls of stone and clay, many of these storehouses remain standing today, restored over the years and put to different uses. Silk weaving came next on the town's timeline but was abandoned after losing out to Kyoto's silk makers; the mulberry trees that supplied food for the silkworms were then replaced with sakura saplings, specifically for the tender leaves used in sakuramochi, a traditional pink-colored mochi (rice cake) with red bean paste filling and wrapped in pickled sakura leaf. Matsuzaki remains the country's largest producer of pickled sakura leaves, which are also used in sushi and for adding a delicate aroma to steamed rice. After Japan opened its doors to foreign trade, some enterprising young men of the town brought back cattle from their travels, from which a budding dairy industry emerged but died out when one of the pioneers, Yoda Benzo, moved to Hokkaido and established a still thriving dairy industry on the northern island. Charcoal, too, became a major source of town revenue, transported by hand-drawn wooden carts and then loaded on riverboats rowed downstream to the port for lading on bigger vessels bound for Edo.
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Izu is a popular travel destination for its mild marine climate, numerous onsen resorts, and exceptionally scenic landscape that varies from lush forested mountains and fertile valleys to miles and miles of jagged coastline and sandy beaches that draw holiday-makers in the summer. The peninsula juts out into the Pacific Ocean, with the east coast stretching along Sagami Bay and the west along Suruga Bay. Kamakura, where I live, shares Sagami Bay, and from our own beach we can see the peninsula's craggy outline on the southwestern end of the horizon, rather like the head and back of an enormous whale. Izu is part of modern-day Shizuoka, one of Japan's 47 prefectures, equivalent to provinces, created in 1888 as the country was emerging from its feudal past and adopting modern western way of life.
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