Your Source for Perfect Chopsticks
The owner of Edokibashi Daikokuya is Takeda Katsuhiko, who was originally a salesman at a company selling dining utensils. Takeda thought that the chopsticks his employer stocked were difficult to use, so he consulted with the craftsmen who made them and asked for new ones. Even those were not up to his ideals, though, and he decided to make his own. That was 20 years ago. Now, his name is known throughout the country for the chopsticks he creates.
Takeda has made a number of original products, but his heptagonal (seven-sided) chopsticks are perhaps the most famous and cannot be found anywhere else. Chopsticks are generally held between the thumb, index, and middle fingers. These three fingers can grip chopsticks whose cross section is heptagonal or pentagonal at just the right angle. Takeda refers to this as the “aesthetic beauty of odd numbers.” Until Takeda started making them, it was considered impossible to cut a circular chopstick into regular heptagonal shapes, because the number seven does not evenly divide the 360 degrees in the circle. Takeda used his long years of experience to beautifully carve out the seven sides from a circular length of wood.
A good set of chopsticks can improve the enjoyment of a meal. Takeda says that since food is the source of sustenance for your body, the tools that you use to transport it to your mouth are important—and you should therefore be particular about which ones you use.
Heptagonal chopsticks.The heptagon is easier to hold than a square and less likely to slip than a circle.The chopsticks are laid out in the store without any packaging so that customers can pick them up and assess how they feel.
The shop is in a separate location from where the chopsticks are made, but visitors can sometimes see the finishing process take place in front of them. The height of Tokyo Skytree was selected to be 634 meters for the easily remembered alternate pronunciations of its digits. The figures six (mu), three (sa), and four (shi) form Musashi, the old name of the Tokyo region where it stands. To share some of the good luck, Takeda has made chopsticks (right) that have six sides at the top, three sides part way down, and four sides towards the tip. The sections with three sides are the easiest to hold. These chopsticks are used in the restaurant on the observation level of Tokyo Skytree.
The owner, Takeda Katsuhiko.Edokibashi Daikokuya
• 2-3-6 Higashi Mukōjima, Sumida-ku, Tokyo (three minutes from Hikifune station on the Tōbu line; seven minutes from Keisei Hikifune station on the Keisei line).
• Tel. 03-3611-0163
• Opening hours: 10:00 to 17:00 (closed on the second and third Saturday of every month, Sundays, and national holidays).
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(Originally written in Japanese by Sasaki Kaori. Photographs by Yamada Shinji)
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