30 FOOD & DRINK
Food & Drink Japanese Fish
By Holly Jones I
’ve just been lucky enough to visit Japan to see some of the Japanese producers who came to Dartmouth
Food Festival last year. It was a really remarkable week and an eye opening opportunity to see part of another culture and its food with the similarities and differences between our 2 countries. so, the Japanese eat a lot of fish; apparently they eat 10% of all the fish caught on the planet despite only having 2% of the population. I always knew they liked it but I’ve now seen it in action. In the 8 days of my visit I must have eaten fish every day and on some days at every meal. Fortunately I like fish too. the obvious choice is sushi and sashimi using super fresh fish such as mackerel, tuna, scallops, cod; in fact all manner of seafood and seafish. We also had it grilled, fried, poached , in soups and stews, hot, cold ... you name it. We also saw a great array of ways of preserving the excess fish: from wind and air dried fish, squid and octopus (some just for a few hours others until completely dried and flat), to cooking fillets in sugar and soy, preserving it in vinegar or rice bran and also making it into fishy soy sauce similar to the thai nam pla. Not only do they eat a lot of fish, they
eat a lot of every fish they catch. I spent a fabulous early morning on the Noto peninsula coast watching the crew of a fishing boat bring in their catch. that day it was mainly cod and sardines with a few flat fish and octopus thrown in for good measure. this crew fished from 2 permanent fixed nets, going
Holly & David Jones 01803 752943
www.mannafromdevon.com LoCAL pRoDUCE • RECIpES • EvENTS
What struck me in
the processing kitchen was how little waste there was from each fish.
for that day. these nets are huge - about 500m long with a 1km gate to guide the fish into the holding nets, the smallest of which is 40m long. Little fish can escape through the net holes and there is plenty of room for the catch to swim around. Apparently the largest creature they had seen in the net was a shark with a dorsal fin taller than one of the
crew so having considered their options, the shark won and they let it swim off. once back in port the fish is divvied up
into those that head off to the local fish market, some that are selected for tokyo
out at 3am to see what had been caught and getting back to port 2 hours later with as much as they could handle
restaurant customers and others that are sent to the boat’s own processing plant. At the plant, a sushi chef fillets the catch for selling at local supermarkets and preserving in a variety of ways to add value to the daily haul. What struck me in the processing kitchen was how little
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