Wani Sashimi: The Crocodile Is a Shark

Uphill from the sea

Bihoku, the hill country of northern Hiroshima around Miyoshi and Shobara, lies a long way from both the Seto Inland Sea and the Sea of Japan. Sea fish usually reached it salted or dried. The wani was different: a sea fish that kept unusually well. According to an encyclopedia of Hiroshima's local culture, that made the area one of the few places in Japan with a tradition of eating shark as sashimi.

According to Japan's agriculture ministry, there are records of merchants from the Sea of Japan coast bringing sharks inland in the Edo period. In the early 1900s, fishermen from Shimane began carrying them over themselves, and families started eating shark sashimi at home.

The fishermen had not been after the meat. In the Meiji era, demand for shark fin was rising, and the government encouraged shark fishing; in 1892, a training centre for shark-fin fishing opened in Yunotsu, a port on the Shimane coast. The catch was taken for its fins and its liver oil. The meat, which the fishermen had no use for, was carried to northern Hiroshima and eaten raw.

The fins went to market. The meat went to the mountains.

A fish that kept

Why shark, of all fish? Part of the answer is chemistry. A living shark holds a large amount of urea in its body, which keeps its body fluids close to the concentration of seawater, so the sea does not draw the water out of it. After death, the urea gradually breaks down into ammonia. That is why sharks and rays have a reputation for smelling of it.

In the traditional explanation, the ammonia was also what made the fish last. The agriculture ministry's description of the dish says that because shark contains a lot of ammonia, it kept, and could be eaten as sashimi for around half a month. The smell grew stronger by the day, so it was often eaten with ginger and soy sauce to cover it. (This is a description of the past, not a storage tip.)

For a by-product, it did rather well. In Bihoku it became a fixture at festivals and New Year. As a festival approached, wani markets would spring up, where large sharks were cut up and sold on the spot. At the meal itself, the sashimi came piled on big platters.

That is where the line about cold stomachs comes in. The flesh is soft and light, one account explains, so however much you eat, it never sits heavy. A guest could keep going until their stomach went cold, and a good host would encourage it.

The 4 a.m. run

Shobara Shokudo, where I ate, calls itself a set-meal restaurant for seasonal vegetables. Leaving Shobara at 4 a.m., the sign at the entrance announces, fresh vegetables delivered daily! A board by the lunch boxes listed thirteen kinds, from hamburg steak to braised pork belly. The only fish it named was mackerel.

Three ways with shark

I ordered the wani teishoku, the shark set meal. It came on a black tray: rice cooked with corn and grains, miso soup, pickles, a slice of citrus, and one large plate under a small hill of salad. The shark came three ways: as sashimi, as a fried piece under tartar sauce, and as wani no sunomono, a small vinegared dish.