Food Manufacturing
Producing High-Quality Products for Foreigners in Nagasaki
Food Label (Father de Rotz Memorial Hall)
Kneading Bowl (Father de Rotz Memorial Hall)
Scale for the Somen (Father de Rotz Memorial Hall)
On the first floor of the Aid Center, the people produced Japanese somen noodles, macaroni, bread, green tea, black tea and soy sauce. De Rotz (1840–1914) used the flour mill by the riverside for milling and also imported and grew high-quality flour seed from France for the production of somen.
The somen produced was mixed with homemade peanut oil and dough to produce delicious noodles. Even today people still enjoy “de Rotz somen.” Thomas Glover, a British merchant who had settled in Nagasaki, helped sell the food produced at the center. Some of these products seem to have enjoyed great popularity at the time. The activities of the Aid Center were carried out based on the ideas of Father de Rotz with the constant aim of helping people.