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Salmon

A fish that has been an essential and familiar part of Japanese food culture since ancient times

     The salmon is a fish in the family Salmonidae family, and subfamily Salmoninae subfamily. Usually, The name "salmon" usually refers to the chum salmon, but it is also often used as a general generic name for other species varieties of salmon, such as the sockeye salmon, the coho salmon, and the pink salmon.

       The salmon has a somewhat elongated, spindle-shaped, flat body, with an adipose fin near the caudal fin, a graeyish-blue dorsal side, and a white ventral side. It reaches up to 1 meter in length. During the spawning period, the salmon acquires scattered gets a scattering of bright- red spots, and. during the egg-laying period, the male salmon develops a pronounced curvature of the jaws that makes its mouth protrude. That is why it the salmon is also called hanamagari (literally,. "bent nose").

       After laying its eggs, the adult salmon reaches the end of concludes its life cycle, and come spring, the hatched young fish swim down the river and into the sea. From there, they swim around the northern go on to swim across the North Pacific Ocean for several years until they grow up, and then they go up river return to the rivers to lay eggs. Many of the returning salmon exhibit homing behavior by choosing to returning to the river where they were born. Salmon tHE fishing methods for salmon include drift- net fishing in offshore areas and fixed- shore- net fishing near the coast.

       Salmon is an important food fish. Fresh salmon meat has a beautiful light-pink color. It is served grilled with salt (shio-yaki), pickled in sake lees (kasuzuke), or salted (aramaki), and also smoked, or canned. Salmon eggs are pickled with salt and prepared as salmon roe served as salmon roe, still in the egg sac (sujiko), or pickled with in soy sauce and served as caviar (ikura). Salmon is in season most delicious from the autumn through the winter months.

       Salmon are easy to catch when they swim up river to lay eggs. For this reason, so they have been used as food in Japan since ancient times. During the Heian period (794-1185), salmon were presented to was sent to Kyoto as a refined present to the imperial court as tribute. Engi shiki ("Procedures of the Engi Era", 927), describes a variety of salmon dishes, in addition to including raw fish, such as salmon dried salmon strips (sake suwayari), salmon ovaries (sujiko), salmon head cartilage pickled in vinegar (hizu, lit. "ice head"), and salted, fermented salmon entrails (sewata). During the Edo period (1603-1868), salted salmon was sent as a New Year presents by the Matsumae Domain (in present-day current Hokkaido) and the Murakami Domain (in present-day current Niigata Prefecture), two regions famous for their salmon products.

       Salmon was also an important nutrition source of nutrition for the Ainu people, who called the fish kamuy cep ("fish of the gods"), and highly valued it highly. 

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Salmon cuisine and flavor

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Salmon-fishing gear

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Institutions Holding Related Materials

  • The National Diet Library (NDL), founded in 1948, is the library which belongs to the Diet. The NDL assists the activities of the National Diet. The Library collects and conserves materials and information both from Japan and abroad, serving as a foundation of knowledge and culture and providing library services to administrative and judicial entities and Japanese citizens.

  • As Japan’s representative museum, Tokyo National Museum collects, preserves, displays, and researches the cultural properties of Asia with a focus on Japan, and also provides educational programs.

  • he National Museum of Ethnology, Japan (Minpaku) is the only research institute of cultural anthropology and ethnology in the world, that is equipped with one of the world’s largest museum facilities as well as post-graduate educational facilities.

  • General Museum and Research Institute of Japanese History / A member of National Institutes for the Humanities, Inter-University Research Institute Corporation

  • 鮭の生態について詳しく学ぶことができる。毎年春には稚魚の放流、秋には採卵の実習を行っている。所在地は北海道札幌市。

  • 鮭の仲間を中心に北海道の淡水魚なども展示している水族館。鮭の稚魚の放流、採卵の体験ができ、千歳川のライブカメラもある。所在地は北海道千歳市。

  • 鮭のコーナーのほかに、根室海峡の魚やイトウの展示などもある。鮭の稚魚の放流や採卵の体験学習を行っている。所在地は北海道標津群標津町。

External Links

  • 広報紙「FRANEWS」「おさかな瓦版」(国立研究開発法人水産研究・教育機構発行)をデジタル化し公開。水産に関する様々な特集を組んでいる。「FRANEWS」vol.13(2008年1月)・vol.16(2008年10月)、「おさかな瓦版」vol.11(2006年6月)・vol.35(2010年6月)に鮭の特集がある。

  • 神奈川県内の川や湖でみられる淡水魚の写真入り図鑑。分布・生態・形態など解説は多岐に渡る。

  • web上のバーチャル博物館。鮭の種類と生態がわかる「サケマス図鑑」をはじめ、「鮭と食」「鮭と文化」「鮭の漁業」「鮭と環境」など、鮭に関する幅広い情報を掲載。

  • 「栄養と料理」(女子栄養大学出版部)をデジタル化し公開。フリーキーワードからレシピ等が検索できる。

References

  1. 望月賢二 監修,魚類文化研究会, 雅麗 編,柏書房
  2. 能勢幸雄 [ほか] 編,東京堂出版,能勢, 幸雄(1926-)||ノセ, ユキオ <AU00335700> [ほか]編
  3. 平凡社 編,平凡社
  4. 尚学図書・言語研究所 編,小学館
  5. 金田禎之 著,東京堂出版
  6. 赤羽正春 著,法政大学出版局