Grilled
Abutte Kamo
Abutte kamo — small damselfish salted overnight and grilled whole
Small damselfish are salted overnight, then grilled whole, scales and innards left on — a bony fish often passed over elsewhere, but said to have caught on in Hakata Bay after a Meiji-era glut led someone to salt and grill the excess.
- Origin: Fukuoka City, Fukuoka
- About 890 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
It's a salt-grilled damselfish, a small fish about 10cm long, cooked with scales, skin, and organs still intact, prized for the savory char of the skin and scales and the slight bitterness of the liver. It's a fish with many small bones and thin flesh that wasn't widely eaten elsewhere. When the fish is in season, it's said to have once turned up in numbers large enough to get in the way of boats, a species found broadly across the Sea of Japan.
How it's made
The fish is salted and left overnight, then grilled whole with its scales and innards left on. It's eaten bones and all, savoring the crisp, browned skin against the juicy flesh. It's said to appear in markets from around March through late summer, with the best, fattiest stretch coming in early summer just before the fish spawns, and getting the heat just right while grilling is said to take some care.
Why it took this shape
Damselfish have many small bones and thin flesh, so few areas made a point of eating them. One account holds that when a glut of the fish once got in the way of boats, someone scooped them up, salted them, and later grilled them to find they tasted good — and the practice stuck. The dish's name is also said to echo a phrase for grilling the fish, or the rich taste it takes on once cooked, and it's said to have become known as a Hakata specialty once restaurants began serving it.
Dishes in the same style
- Gohei MochiFreshly cooked non-glutinous rice is pounded, pressed flat on a skewer, and grilled with a miso glaze. Said to have originated in the mountainous Chubu region, it's traditionally made the night before a festival praying for safety in mountain work.
- Akebi no Miso ZumeyakiThe bittersweet rind of the akebia fruit is stuffed with minced meat and maitake mushroom simmered in miso and sugar, tied with kitchen string, and grilled. Elsewhere in Japan the white pulp is what gets eaten, but Yamagata is said to hold onto the unusual custom of eating the rind instead.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Fukuoka
- Achara ZukeWhite melon, eggplant, and lotus root are pickled in a sweet vinegar spiked with red chili — the name is said to trace to the Portuguese 'achar', carried in through Hakata Bay's old trade, and an odd number of vegetables is used for Obon hospitality.
- Amagi no KawatakeA rare wild freshwater algae, found only in the Kogane River in Asakura, is dressed with sweet or three-flavor vinegar — said to have once been presented to the shogun, and now conservation efforts continue as it's listed as endangered.
- Beta MochiWheat dough is flattened, steamed, and topped with soybean flour or sweet red bean paste — named, it's said, for its resemblance to a flat local sole called 'beta', and tied to the feast marking the end of rice planting.
- Kabocha no Dango JiruA giant local pumpkin from Buzen's Mikkado district is simmered soft, then torn wheat dumplings are dropped in — the pumpkin, said to trace some 450 years back to Portuguese traders, was once a lifeline in leaner years.
- ChanraaA noodle dish said to have started at a diner in Moji, Kitakyushu. Chanpon-style noodles go into a Japanese dried-sardine broth closer to udon than to the original pork-and-seafood soup, devised, it's said, for a student who wanted Nagasaki champon but couldn't afford it.
- Ebi ZakkoSeveral kinds of small shrimp are quickly simmered in sweetened soy, and the leftover broth then cooks somen noodles — a fisherman's way of using up the mixed catch of small shrimp hauled from the Buzen Sea while it's still fresh.