Something fishy at dawn
Bluefin tuna is king in the world’s busiest fish market.
Keith Austin dives in.
We are initially open-mouthed. “Occupational health and safety
would have a field day in here,” says one of our small group. He
isn’t joking. It is only 5.30am on a grey but humid day in Tokyo.
The normally lively streets are quiet but the scene in front of us
is nothing less than controlled chaos. If you’re not careful you
could end your life here, crushed under a tuna. Welcome to the
Tsukiji Fish Market.
We have missed the tuna auctions by about half an hour but this
was probably just as well because there is some confusion as to
whether we are allowed into the 5am trading room any more.
According to our guide, tourists who couldn’t keep their hands, or
their camera flashes, to themselves had begun interfering with the
auctions and the traders so much that the authorities had banned
them. “Americans,” he says with some disdain.
The big fish are already marked up and resting on pallets, their
tails ignominiously cut off and shoved in their mouths, awaiting
collection and eventual dismemberment in the market itself.
Mercifully, apart from the odd guttural warning grunt from the
man spraying blood from the trading room floor, the merchants and
workers are curiously incurious about the gaijin (foreigners)
taking pictures of their catch.
The Tsukiji Fish Market is said to be the biggest wholesale fish
and seafood market in the world, handling about 2000 tonnes of
seafood - from caviar to 300-kilogram bluefin tuna - every day.
There are 900 or so licensed dealers, who work out of small, bright
stalls packed into the cavernous building, and between 60,000 and
65,000 employees.
And they all seem to be here this morning, humping enormous tuna
on two-wheeled handcarts along the narrow alleyways between the
stalls, cutting the beautiful blood-red flesh into large steaks or
hurtling at a frenetic pace around the inner market (the jonai
shijo) on dinky little motorised carts (called taretto, I am
told).
You really want to keep your wits about you here. Eyes in the
back of the head would help, too. These taretto drivers, often with
cigarettes dangling from their lips, steer their box- or
barrel-laden carts as if their lives depended on it, zipping
through the crowds, around small vans, forklifts and each other in
a wild ballet of movement and noise.
After watching the last of the tuna being hauled away, we wander
back through the hundreds of dealers’ stalls, where seafood of
every shape, size and colour awaits its fate, shining slickly under
flickering fluorescent lights and bare lightbulbs. Interestingly
the smell of fish isn’t overpowering. Perhaps because fresh fish -
and it doesn’t come much fresher than this - doesn’t actually smell
like fish.
Larger thoroughfares cross the floor at various points but off
these, in a block pattern, smaller paths less than two people wide
run through the crammed stalls, leaving you with the impression of
being hemmed in by seafood of every variety.
It’s an amazing sight, a vast, echoing cavern full of the noise
of commerce, the warning cries of the handcart men, the chat of the
traders and the occasional whirr of buzzsaws as frozen tuna is cut
up for customers. Despite the best efforts of our Japanese guide,
many of the myriad types of fish remain unidentified.
Apart from the tuna there are boxes of bright scarlet octopus,
squid, strange-looking fish coloured green, black, yellow, orange,
white and fluorescent pink. There is (we think) salmon, yellowtail,
mackerel, sardine, bonito, wakame seaweed, trout, sea snails, huge
and almost translucent slugs and eels (conger and otherwise). Some
are alive, some are dead.
Crabs large and small clamber over each other in a bid to escape
and we watch as a small black turtle strains it neck and claws
trying to break through the net imprisoning it. I lose count of the
different types and sizes of shellfish and crustaceans and am
simply amazed at a crate of oysters each bigger than a large man’s
hand.
It’s a wonder and it eventually makes you wonder, too: how long
will this be sustainable? We are aghast at the volume and variety
of fish available. The Japanese love affair with fish has been
going on for centuries and they are, officially, the world’s
biggest consumers of fish. The United Nations estimates Japan eats
30 per cent of the world’s fresh fish, about 80 kilograms a year
for every man, woman and child, compared to just 18 kilograms in
Australia.
But according to the Statistical Handbook of Japan, the Japanese
fishing industry is undergoing major changes because of a reduction
in catches, due to the deterioration of the marine resources in the
waters around Japan.
Japan’s fishing industry, says the handbook, has been declining
since 1989. In 2006, production from marine fisheries and marine
culture amounted to 5.59 million tonnes, down 1.5 per cent from the
previous year. According to figures from the Japanese Ministry of
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, tuna catches are down from
332,000 tonnes a year in 1995 to 208,000 tonnes in 2006. The
sardine catch is down from 661,000 tonnes in 1995 to 52,000 in
2006. As a result, the number of people in the marine fishery
industry has dropped from 301,000 to 222,000.
It’s not a pretty collection of statistics but you wouldn’t
believe any of it looking at the hustle and bustle of the market
after 7am, when the auctions are over and the market is in full
swing.
The buzzsaws mentioned earlier are being used on frozen tuna,
its black skin now frosty white, but it’s their careful slicing
that holds our fascination. We watch as an older man examines a
fish as large as a 10-year-old child and points out the exact
position he wants the cut to be made. Then a younger man, wielding
a long, samurai-length “sword”, makes the incision with one swift
and skilful slice. One more cut and the bloody chunks of tuna,
looking more like enormous raw beef steaks, are passed down the
line to have the skin carefully - very carefully, this stuff can be
worth $200 a kilo - removed.
We have, by now, seen enough and the traditional thing to do is
to seek out one of the small hole-in-the-wall restaurants that
surround the market and tuck into a Japanese breakfast of some of
the freshest sushi and sashimi on the planet.
At the nearby Park Hotel the previous morning I had had the
traditional Japanese breakfast of congee rice, miso, salmon,
various pickled vegetables, dried fish, tofu, seaweed and umeboshi,
a pickled, salted plum that is so sour I hope never to come across
it again.
Seafood for breakfast? I suspect it’s something you have to be
born to. Like Vegemite.
Keith Austin travelled courtesy of the Japan National
Tourist Organisation and JAL.
FAST FACTS
Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market (Tsukiji Fish
Market) is at 5-2-1, Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo. Entry is free.
Getting there Take the Toei Oedo train line to Tsukiji-Shijo
station and use the A2 exit.
When Closed Sundays, national holidays and various days
throughout the year. December is best avoided as it is very busy.
Check with your hotel for details.
See www.tsukiji-market.or.jp/tukiji-e.htm.
