Month: February 2005

^*Not to be confused with Japanese Fish Cake (“kamaboko“)
Early attempts at manufacturing sausages from fish meat (employing cellophane or sheep innards as the outer wrapper/skin) have been traced back to the Taisho period (1912 – 1926). It is not clear why these early experiments failed but one might suspect the very concept of a “fish sausage” sounded pretty weird, even to the inventor’s own family. After all, fish was delicious even without encasing it in animal entrails and could be preserved, to an extent, with traditional methods such as salting and drying. In addition, the formula for creating fish sausages were not perfected before the idea was shelved.
In the years following the war, huge demand was seen for canned and preserved foodstuffs that could be easily manufactured, stored, and distributed, and a new development effort was started in the industry to revive the fish sausage project. By borrowing a technology used in the aforementioned kamaboko industry at the time – using rubber hydrochloride (!) to make transparent skins for the sausage – and fine-tuning the recipe, a feasible product was achieved and mass production of fish sausages began in 1951. The following year it was brought to market, and the rest, as they say, is history. The product was a huge hit and demand increased every year to the point where entire generations of Japanese were brought up eating fish sausages in their school lunch, at home, and everywhere in between.
The industry is definitely not at its peak these days, but there are still many companies producing varied and successful fish sausage products. Here is one site with good photos linked to an online store that will deliver to your door (in Japan). There was even a Japan Fish Sausage Association until a few years ago. It disbanded and joined up with the Japan Canners Association where they became – you guessed it – the Japan Fish Sausage Committee. The legacy lives on.
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All the information used in this post was gleaned from various Japanese web sites. I can’t possibly be the ONLY PERSON in the ENTIRE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD interested in the WONDERFUL HISTORY OF FISH SAUSAGE, right?… Actually, judging by the absence of research materials available on it, maybe I am. Which is strange, because I don’t like eating the stuff – it just seems wrong to stress my mouth, which is used to pork, beef, and other normal ingredients for sausage (I may have gotten used to corn on pizza, but fishy-tasting sausage? NEVER!)
Other fun stuff unearthed in my search for the elusive fish sausage:
– This is processed fish products nirvana: GYONIKUKAN (JP-only, go look anyway)
– In regard to sausage filling, some sausage academics use the term “farinaceous filler” instead of, simply, “starch”
– According to one account, the fish used in the first mass-produced fish sausages was Alaska Haddock. Over the years the industry preference changed to tuna (shockingly, these were called Tuna Sausages), then to whale (now I see why the fish sausage trend never caught on in the west), then to, well – everything with scales.
– Somehow, it’s easier for me to accept that the waste parts of fish (as Mandy said here, “lips and peckers,” are most probably used to make these sausages. Easier than thinking about “hooves and assholes” in an “all-beef” hot dog, that is. If you know what I mean.
– The Japan Canners Association has an inspirational theme song on its site. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the music files.
– The now-defunct Japan Fish Sausage Association was once located at:
Japan Fish Sausage Assn
Nihon Gyoniku Soseji Kyokai
Kusumoto 6 Bldg
1-3-9 Higashi Shimbashi
Minatoku Tokyo 105-0021
Tel 03 35735586 Fax 03 35735587