When people talk of fish they cannot help but mention Japan, as Tokyo’s Tsukiji is by far the largest fish market in the world. Second would likely be Rungis Market in Paris which is considerably smaller. On show would be at least 400 different types of seafood ranging from dirt-cheap sardines (I know them well) to golden brown dried sea slug caviar at a bargain price of $450-$500 per pound.

Tsukiji moves about 5 million pounds of seafood every day and that is the equivalent to $25-$30 million worth of fish. Can the oceans and its fishing areas sustain such a massive usage — I very much doubt it.

Sixty-thousand people work at Tsukiji, a market that uses more than 30,000 vehicles to create an intermingled mass of activity that would make Jakarta roads resemble paradise.

Hundreds of tuna arrive in Japan by cargo jet every day weighing anything from 200 to 1,000 pounds each, many of which are longer than a man. So voracious is the Japanese appetite for fish that even a swordfish caught by a tourist off the coast of Florida is more likely these days to end up frozen in Tsukiji than stuffed on the fisherman’s wall.

When the daily auction starts one seller said: “You know, the tuna I sell go for ¥600,000 [US$6,800], even ¥1 million apiece, and I have to sell 200 of them in about half an hour every morning.” All the tuna and more than half of all the seafood Tsukiji sells each day will be eaten raw — either sliced into small rectangles as sashimi or placed as the topping on a cube of sushi rice. And it will all be expensive.

A tuna caught by an American fishing boat is sold to a Japanese trading company, who then ship it via air and truck to a first-tier wholesaler at Tsukiji. Then it is sold at auction to a smaller Tsukiji wholesaler, cut, packaged, and then transferred to various distributors, who deliver to restaurants throughout central Japan.

From California, Oregon and Maine comes uni (sea urchin), a fist-size shellfish with a buttery soft meat of yellow, red or bright orange. Most Americans probably wouldn’t know a uni from a king prawn, but no matter, every last exported uni goes straight to Japan. This import is necessary because the uni-picking grounds in Japan and Korea have been over-fished, and thus need time to replenish. But now the Americans are moving the same way as stocks of sea urchins dwindle — so, what about tomorrow?

Well, of course there will be no tomorrow, and like the vast majority of people worldwide, the Japanese will have to get used to sardines on toast.

David Wallis
Medan

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