Near the end of the fall season, several towns around the prefecture hold salmon festivals. They round up boatloads of salmon from the ocean and harvest their eggs and sperm for fertilization in fisheries later on. The "harvested" salmon that are at the end of their life cycle are then released into shallow pools at the festival site. Basically, the festival is there to entertain people as a sort of "play with your food before you eat it" activity. The festival we attended was in the town of Oirase in eastern Aomori Prefecture near Hachinohe and Misawa.
For a small fee of 1000 yen, you can participate in the famous salmon catch. Once you have donned gloves and wading boots, you and a crowd of other participants are given 5 minutes to catch the salmon of your choice. Obviously, bigger is better, but there were several fish with yellow ribbon tied to them that would earn you a special prize. There was also a "smallest fish" contest, where the disappointment of catching the smallest fish out of the lot is offset by a consolation prize.
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| Ready to rumble! |
Video of the hunt!
As you can see, the salmon are not small critters. Mine probably measured about 3 feet and weighed at least 5 kilograms. Some participants, like the girl beside me in the video screenshot, were really hyped up to catch the fish at first, but got a little intimidated by their size upon seeing them. "They're like little sharks!" said another participant. They had sharp little teeth at the end of their snouts too!
After we caught the salmon, we waited in a long line to have the fish gutted and filleted. I felt bad as the energetic thrashing of my fish weakened until it ceased moving altogether, but such is the circle of life. =[ We packed the pieces of fish into a large cooler we brought (we were the only ones who had the sense to bring a cooler) before heading out.
Besides catching fish, there were other festivities, like all kinds of international food and a salmon race. I'm not entirely sure how the salmon race went down, but the fish were placed into narrow troughs and "encouraged" from behind by pole-wielding participants.
Since we'd already driven so far east, we left the festival and headed back to the trusty Sasaki Restaurant in Gonohe for a tasty horse meat lunch. We turned down all-you-can-eat barbecue for a taste of 馬刺し basashi, or "horse meat sashimi". I just love this buttery red meat!
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| Lean raw horse muscle. We DEFINITELY cannot get this in the States... |
