376 Shark and Company 



Hoshizame is also sometimes salted and dried and then cooked the same 

 way. Another of the 90-odd species of shark known in Japanese 

 waters, Neziimizame (Vulpecula marina), a Thresher shark, is boiled 

 and sometimes roasted. It is particularly relished around Tokyo. Shark 

 ovaries are used to make atsuyaki, a kind of fish-paste. They are also 

 used to make a special kind of cake. The ovaries are also used as sub- 

 stitutes for eggs. 



The flesh of the Aburazame (Squalus sucklii) is the principal in- 

 gredient of chikuiva, a fish-cake product that looks like a sausage with 

 a hole through it. Chikuiva is a popular Japanese fish product. About 

 150,000 tons— worth some $41 million— is produced a year. 



But it is kamaboko that gets most of Japan's sharks. According to 

 Masabumi Yoshioka, treasurer of the Kanetetsu Company in Kobe, 

 and Akiyoshi Okada, the factory manager, their factory alone produces 

 12,000 tons of kamaboko a year. 



Like the shark itself, which figures in Japanese legends back to the 

 dimmest remembered time, kamaboko has a long history. A short 

 time before the feudal age in Japan, people began roasting crushed fish 

 flesh on bamboo skewers. Because its shape resembled the top of a cat- 

 tail, it was called kamaboko, or "cattail head." At the end of the feudal 

 age, just before the Meiji Restoration in the nineteenth century, kama- 

 boko began to appear in shops throughout Japan, and its popularity 

 has been increasing ever since. About 420,000 tons of kamaboko are 

 now produced in Japan each year. 



Kamaboko is made by crushing the flesh of fish. Then it is mixed 

 with cornstarch, potato starch, salt, saccharin, dulcin, and vitamin addi- 

 tives. After it is shaped into a round or rectangular form of about the 

 thickness of a pancake, it is steamed or roasted. 



Shark is not the only kind of fish used in making kamaboko. Sea 

 eels, croakers, and flatheads are among the fish used. But two types of 

 kamaboko— czWtd ampei (shaped like a flat box) and haben (shaped 

 like a flat ball)— use shark exclusively. In a somewhat frank description, 

 Mr. Yoshioka and Mr. Okada say these pure-shark kamaboko are "as 

 elastic as crude rubber." The Yoshikirizame shark {Prionace glauca) is 

 one of the sharks used most frequently in making kamaboko. 



According to Professor Kenichi Kagawa of the Himeji University 

 of Technology, shark fishing in Japan has been on a constant rise, from 

 152,869 tons in 1950 to 346,444 tons in 1957. But, perhaps because of the 

 constant fishing, fishermen report that sharks are becoming less numer- 

 ous in Japanese waters. Kazuhiko Suzuki of the Japanese Department of 

 Fishery says that, with the development of oceanic fishing for sharks, 

 methods will be perfected to keep sharks fresh during long fishing 

 trips. He also points out that some parts of the shark which were for- 



