In the cramped kitchen of his hillside home, 83-year-old Jiro Tochigi unrolls a handwritten scroll. On its surface are words transcribed by Tochigi from a radio broadcast in the 1950s — how to raise cows for Matsusaka beef.

“This is a manual for raising healthy cows, but it’s really up to each one how she will grow. You can’t predict anything,” says Tochigi.

What can be predicted is how the cow is treated, and cows in the town of Matsusaka are treated famously well. Before he built a stable, Tochigi kept his cows like pets in the adjoining room. In the kitchen, he would steam their coarse feed to soften it, humming along to enka tunes to relax them as they ate.