Pride fish (プライドフィッシュ)

Pride fish: local fishermen’s proud fish in Japan.

National Federation of Fisheries Co-operative Associations held a 3rd Fish-1 grad prix on March 6, 2016, which is a festival and competition of local seafoods and dishes based on the local fishes (local speciality fishes).

When you imagine Japanese food, there are lots of Japanese dishes related to fish such as Sashimi and Sushi. There are standard fish series in Sashimi and Sushi such as tuna, salmon, sea Bream, and mackerel, and many people think that freshness is the most important in Sashimi.Yes, it is true. However, among Japanese people, where the fish comes from is highly valued.

In Japanese culture, locality is regarded highly valuable on not only foods but also any products. Indeed, Japanese people really care “made in ~”.

A example of special local mattered fish is “tuna”, a standard Sashimi fish, is widely caught in Japan and in the world such as from Indonesia, Spain and Mexico, but there is a special tuna exists. The prices are very different in locality. The very famous tuna in Japan is Pacific Bluefin tuna (called Hon-maguro “true tuna”) from Oma-city, Aomori prefecture. Their Tuna is usually sold at $50 ~ $100 per kilogram. (Tuna is usually 100-200kg).

If you are planning to travel around in Japan, cuisine is one of the best entertainment of Japanese trip and the list below would be helpful to enjoy the local fish.

local fishermen’s proud fish

Every prefecture which faces the sea has their local proud speciality fish (pride fish プライドフィッシュ). http://www.pride-fish.jp/ (unfortunately ONLY Japanese)

There are Pride fish from 5 regions in Japan in each season, spring, summer, fall and winter. I will try to do my best to translate all fish names, but some there is no translation.

	Prefecture	pride fish	Spring	Summer	Fall	Winter
Region
Hakkaido & Tohoku region	Hokkaido		Pacific herring	Oyster	mantis shrimp	Scallop
	Aomori		rockfish	Tuna	flounder
	Iwate		Seaweed	Ezoishikage-kai (shellfish)	Salmon	abalone
	Miyagi		Gin (Salmon)	Sea Squirt	Oyster
	Akita		Fugu	sailfin sandfish
	Yamagata				Spanish mackerel (Sawara)	Red shrimp
	Fukushima				Pacific saury	Bigeyed greeneye

Kanto & Hokuriku region	Ibaraki		young lance fish	abalone	whitebait	monkfish
	Chiba		Berycoid-fish	pilchard	lobster	Seaweed
	Tokyo		flying fish
	Kanagawa		horse mackerel	Conger-eel	mackerel	Seaweed
	Niigata		Nagamo (seaweed)	black throat seaperch	right-eyed flounder	Shrimp
	Toyama		firefly squid	white shrimp	snow crab	yellowtail
	Ishikawa		red right-eyed flounder	raw flying squid	deep-water shrimp	Crab
	Fukui			Horsehead tilefish	right-eyed flounder	crab

Tokai & Kinki region	Shizuoka		turban shell	Akafuji (rainbow trout)	Spear squid	Berycoid-fish
	Aichi		asari clam	eel	swimming crab	seaweed
	Mie			abalone	lobster	red sea bream
	Shiga		sweetfish	trout		crucian carp
	Kyoto		right-eyed flounder	oyster	hoursehead tilefish	yellowtail
	Osaka		Pacific sand lance	octopus	Japanese Spanish mackerel	Tonguefish
	Hyogo		firefly squid	octopus	Japanese Spanish mackerel	oyster
	Wakayama		bonito	hairtail	young sardines	lobster

Chugoku & Shikoku region	Totori		sailfin sandfish	oyster	Japanese Spanish mackerel	Snow Crab
	Shimane			househead tilefish	black throat seaperch	snow crab
	Okayama		Elongate ilisha	Japanese seaperch	swimming crab	flatfish
	Hiroshima		sea bream	pilchard	hairtail	oyster
	Yamaguchi		fugu	octopus	squid	tora fugu
	Kagawa		salmon	dried sea slug	young yellowtail	seaweed
	Tokushima		sea bream	abalone	squid	seaweed
	Ehime		sea bream	octopus	swimming crab	yellowtail
	Kochi		bonito	Berycoid-fish	round herring	mackerel

Kyushu & Okinawa Region	Fukuoka		leatherfish	squid	fugu	seaweed
	Shiga			squid		seaweed
	Nagasaki					fugu
	Oita		flounder	hairtail	Daggertooth pike conger	yellowtail
	Kumamoto		Asari shellfish	hamaguri shellfish		seaweed
	Miyazaki		tuna	dried young sardines	lobster	yellowtail
	Kagoshima		Japanese giant flyingfish	Banded blue sprat
	Okinawa		Mozuku(kind of seaweed)	Tuna	bamboo shrimp

Types of fish in Japanese is very varied; for eaxmple, “squid”, there are at least 3 best known squid in Japan: “spear squid”, “Japanese common squid”, “southern squid”. On the list above, I don’t describe some fish in detail such as “octopus”.

I am hoping this post helps you when you travel to these prefectures to enjoy their proud local fishes. Enjoy Japanese fishes.