For his food truck, Sameya, owner-chef Takumi Takase has developed a delicious menu of dishes using shark meat from Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, providing a stable income for local fishermen.

Hidehito Komaki pulls a dried pod from the flowering stem of a cabbage plant and carefully splits it. Both sides are lined with tiny brown beads. "Each of these is a seed," Komaki explains to those clustered around him. "A single cabbage plant produces ...