Tuna is not a part of our traditional diet

[Christoff]

Amid tuna mania, Japan needs to ask itself what food traditions are worth protecting

Novelist and gourmand Shotaro Ikenami talks about tuna in "Baian kageboshi" (Baian, the Shadow) of his historical series, "Shikakenin Fujieda Baian" (Master Assasin, Fujieda Baian).

The protagonist, Baian, makes a visit to Izutsu, a high-class restaurant in Tokyo's Asakusa district, for the first time in a while. There, he is served fish meat with white fat, which has been marinated in wasabi (Japanese horseradish) and soy sauce and grilled on a metal grate. Baian takes a bite and says something to the effect of "This is pretty good."

The story takes place in the late Edo period, when tuna was rarely consumed. Even in the early Showa period, people only ate lean tuna meat, and fish mongers discarded the fatty parts because they spoiled quickly.

Ikenami continues to write about tuna for three pages, interspersing his childhood memories of the fish into the episode.

It was the recent brouhaha over tuna diplomacy and the "tuna as a part of Japanese culture" argument that reminded me of Baian.

As Ikenami wrote, the history of tuna consumption is young. In western Japan, where yellowtail is widely eaten, its history is even shorter. Modern refrigeration technology and transport made tuna available to the masses, but it only began appearing in supermarkets and at conveyor-belt sushi restaurants in the past decade or so.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/news/20100322p2a00m0na001000c.html

[Tobacco Taro]

[Takechanpoo]

Whatever gaijijn dudes are whining, traditions are traditions which started in Meiji era.
sorry

[laterthanyou]

is tentacle porn a tradition?

[Mulboyne]