Pride fish (プライドフィッシュ)

pride fish

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.

Prefecturepride fishSpringSummerFallWinter
Region
Hakkaido & Tohoku regionHokkaido Pacific herring Oystermantis shrimp Scallop
 Aomori rockfishTunaflounder
 IwateSeaweedEzoishikage-kai (shellfish)Salmonabalone
MiyagiGin (Salmon)Sea SquirtOyster
AkitaFugusailfin sandfish
YamagataSpanish mackerel (Sawara) Red shrimp
FukushimaPacific sauryBigeyed greeneye
Kanto & Hokuriku regionIbarakiyoung lance fishabalonewhitebaitmonkfish
ChibaBerycoid-fishpilchardlobsterSeaweed
Tokyoflying fish
Kanagawahorse mackerelConger-eelmackerelSeaweed
NiigataNagamo (seaweed)black throat seaperchright-eyed flounderShrimp
Toyama firefly squidwhite shrimpsnow crabyellowtail
Ishikawa red right-eyed flounderraw flying squiddeep-water shrimpCrab
FukuiHorsehead tilefishright-eyed floundercrab
Tokai & Kinki regionShizuokaturban shellAkafuji (rainbow trout)Spear squidBerycoid-fish
Aichi asari clameelswimming crabseaweed
Mieabalonelobsterred sea bream
Shigasweetfishtroutcrucian carp
Kyoto right-eyed flounderoysterhoursehead tilefishyellowtail
OsakaPacific sand lance octopusJapanese Spanish mackerelTonguefish
Hyogo firefly squidoctopus Japanese Spanish mackereloyster
Wakayama bonitohairtailyoung sardineslobster
Chugoku & Shikoku regionTotori sailfin sandfishoyster  Japanese Spanish mackerelSnow Crab
Shimanehousehead tilefishblack throat seaperchsnow crab
OkayamaElongate ilisha Japanese seaperchswimming crabflatfish
Hiroshimasea breampilchardhairtailoyster
Yamaguchi fuguoctopussquidtora fugu
Kagawa salmondried sea slugyoung yellowtailseaweed
Tokushima sea breamabalonesquidseaweed
Ehime sea breamoctopusswimming crabyellowtail
Kochi bonitoBerycoid-fish round herringmackerel
Kyushu & Okinawa RegionFukuoka leatherfishsquidfugu seaweed
Shigasquidseaweed
Nagasakifugu
Oita flounderhairtailDaggertooth pike congeryellowtail
Kumamoto Asari shellfishhamaguri shellfishseaweed
Miyazaki tunadried young sardineslobsteryellowtail
KagoshimaJapanese giant flyingfishBanded blue sprat
Okinawa Mozuku(kind of seaweed)Tunabamboo 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.


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