Seafood ── Fish
Kamasu
barracuda — a slender fish best known dried
A slender coastal fish whose watery flesh spoils quickly, so drying it into himono is said to concentrate its flavor. Places able to process the catch near the fishing grounds tend to earn the strongest reputation for their dried fish.
- White fish
What it's made of
A slender coastal fish whose flesh runs watery and fairly plain. Dried, it loses that excess moisture and concentrates in flavor; salt-grilled, the skin turns crisp while the flesh stays airy. It can be eaten raw, but drying has become the more established way to serve it, largely because of that moisture. It peaks in autumn as the water starts to cool, when it carries a touch more fat too.
How it's made
Because its watery flesh spoils fast, it's typically split and dried soon after landing. A light, overnight dry keeps the flesh tender while concentrating flavor, and having few bones that split easily is part of why the dried-fish tradition took hold here. Recent processing has even found ways to make the bones themselves edible.
Why it took this shape
Facing Sagami Bay, Odawara in Kanagawa sits close enough to its fishing grounds that freshly landed barracuda can be split and set to dry almost immediately. Because the fish spoils so quickly, how fast it moves from catch to processing shapes the flavor, and that speed is said to be why dried-fish making took root locally — the short distance between ground and workshop deciding the flavor almost directly.
Before you go
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
- Roadside stations, direct-sale stands, and marketsHow to enjoy buying food near where it's produced, visiting and shopping at morning markets and fish markets, what to expect at farm stands, and finding local food at roadside stations (michi-no-eki).
- Foods to look for in springA guide to foods often seen in Japan around spring — early bonito, bamboo shoots, sakura mochi, hanami bento, new-season tea, and butterbur sprouts — with rough pointers for finding them.
Dishes in the same style
- AinameA white-fleshed fish of rocky shores, served raw or simmered in old Edomae style. Sedentary by nature, it varies by region, and in some Tohoku ports its liver is eaten too — a fish long prized as a local catch.
- AmadaiA pink-skinned fish with a subtle sweetness, known in Kyoto as 'guji'. Fish caught in Wakasa Bay were lightly salted and carried inland along the old Saba Kaido route, a history that made lightly-salted Wakasa amadai prized in Kyoto cuisine.