Bonito and its cultivation

- Japanese use bonito to give their broth a fragrant and oceantic flavour
- 3am the freshly caught bonito arrived at the port
- crowds usually gather to bid for fish laid out there
- as the weather may get bad sometimes, and the sea is very choppy, very few trawlers will be docking
- more ships may be arriving shortly

- Makurazaki City faces East Sea
- the fishing port churns out over 120,000 tonnes of seafood a year
- 7500 trawlers and rich marine products remain abundant on rainy days
- bond herring are unique to Kagoshima and don't smell fishy at all

- there's a myriad of familiar fish being towed in, such as sardines and mackerel
- 128 kg of sardines are brought in daily
- a ritual --the fish aution-- exists with bonito the first to go on the block

- in Singapore, fishmongers use hand signs to keep their bidding prices a secret
- fishmongers in Makurazaki write their bidding prices on small wooden sticks and toss them to the wholesaler


- within minutes of gathering the sticks, the wholesaler determines the highest bidders
- the top half of the highest bidders will state their purchase amounts
- after the successful bids, another round of bidding begins

- as the weather is bad, the prices of the fishes are exorbitant
- the fishes will be sold to the supermarkets
- bond herring will sell best due to the weather
- the pole-and-line maritime trawler docks once a month
- 800 tonnes of bonito on board makes a spectacular appearance
- more than half a day is required to unload the bonito from the trawler
- Japan hauls in more than 85,000 bonito every year
- pole-and-line fishing method whereby the trawler sails out to the ocean and every fisherman uses a fishing rod to catch fish one by one
- the method ensures fish caught are of the same size and fetch good prices
- casting a wide net will catch fish of varying sizes and depress prices

- there's no bait on the fish hook
- the fishermen will toss the bait overboard once they get out to the ocean to attract the bonito before they start fishing
- bonito is caught every 2 seconds on average using this method

- 800 tonnes are caught one by one, and are immediately gutted and frozen at -50 deg C on the trawler
- the workers separate them according to size and colour before delivering to the processing plants
- once the door is closed the fire will be extinguished

- bonito can be made into flakes
- bonito first delivered to the plant are frozen and must be defrosted
- no fishy smell from the bonito and take an entire night to defrost
- thawing (defrosting process) is completed when foams are bubbling over and covering the top of the tank
- water will be drained and bonito will be processed inside

- traditionally slaughtered by hand which takes 5 years to master
- machine is used to cut bonito nowadays, at a rate of one bonito per minute
- next they are arranged in gold-plated crates to be boiled in 90 deg C water
- this will help to solidify the fish meat and prevent it from going stale
- after boiling, the bones and 2/3 of the skin must be removed manually
- a painstaking process, followed by a makeover process -- smoothing over the cavities with fish meat to shape it into a bonito fillet

- next the bonito are being smoked on the 2nd and 3rd floors for about 2 weeks
- special wood from Kagoshima is used and once the door is shut, a lack of oxygen will put the fire out
- the burning coals will smoke the bonito for 2 weeks

- to make bonito fillets, they must contain less than 20% of water content
- a long drying period is also required to curb the fat from turning acidic
- after the bonito are dried in the sun they are left to turn mouldy

- this method has been used for more than 500 years ago
- as Japan is extremely humid, things get mouldy easily
- this is why a bonito fillet takes 6 months to make

- there's a pervasive smell of damp laundry once you enter the room
- the first phase of moulding for the dried bonito -- greenish in colour
- there're 4 phases of moulding and drying in all

- the second phase of moulding for the dried bonito is brown in colour
- the temperature is like the Singapore climate while the climate outside is freezing

- fillets in the 3rd and 4th phase look similar in size and colour
- differentiate the bonito by the sound they make
- dried bonito at the 3rd phase make low sound while that in 4th phase make a much clearer sound

- the final product is nothing outstanding in appearance but the inside looks like ruby and has lovely fragrance
- this is then used to make broth

- good things come to him who waits
- the completely mouldy bonito fillets are turned into bonito flakes must be steamed again for more than 30 minutes
- this softens the bonito fillets which have been stored for ages so they can be easily shaven quickly into flakes
- a machine is used these days to shave the bonito into flakes with even thickness and quality
- bonito flakes are a powerful weapon in Japanese broth

- nondescript dried bonito are also called wooden fillets as they're as hard as wood
- the bonito flakes are paper-thin and virtually transparent
- the broth smells divine and tastes extra fragrant and sweet
- apart from using it to make broth, bonito also makes a delectable dish
- after barbecuing the bonito skin slightly, it can be sliced and served as sashimi
- Japanese are very particular about their fish
- fell head over heels for bonito after the Meiji period

- bonito can be prepared differently
- not available in Singapore but only in the surrounding waters of Kagoshima
- bonito caught by pole-and-line is often served in Singapore and tastes refreshingly sweet