By Shohei SHIBATA

Japan, 2014, 50 minutes

Dashi is a distillation of the natural resources of Japan, the essence of its very nature. In the philosophy of Japanese cuisine, Dashi is not fabricated or concocted but “drawn out” from the very stuff of nature. The essential ingredients from which it is drawn are gathered from the waters that surround Japan’s islands, but Dashi is also nurtured in the forest, where forest dwellers have for centuries developed the delicate craft of cultivating choice shiitake mushrooms from the humid trees.