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Dave Lowry
13th October 2005, 17:10
Kusaya. Anyone out there enjoy it? I haven't had it for a long time and started thinking about it earlier today. A specialty of the Izu area. I'm betting it will be thought a trifle too "pungent" for most. There's a saying that you eat it one day but smell it in the house for three.

Margaret Lo
13th October 2005, 18:26
...But, what is it?

M

twayman
13th October 2005, 18:43
...But, what is it?

M
Made from fermented mackerel soaked in gravy that consists of a brine solution that is used over and over again. Gravy is very old. When the fish are removed, they are dried in the sun and then are usually grilled. :p

Never had it… Give it to Dave he’ll eat anything. :)

Margaret Lo
13th October 2005, 20:37
That sounds great! how and with what is it served? Is it eaten alone or as part of something else?

Dave Lowry
13th October 2005, 21:09
Ms. Lo,
Kusaya is a kind of fermented whole fish. The most common way of writing the word means literally, “stinking place.” It’s a specialty of the Izu region, an island chain that’s directly southeast of Tokyo. The biggest island in the region is Oshima, where kusaya is a native delicacy, but I think most of it is eaten in the Tokyo environs.
Kusaya has an interesting history. Because the Tokugawa government laid claim to nearly all the salt produced in the Izu area, natives there didn’t have any good way of making brine to ferment pickles or other foods. So they devised a method that used a minimal amount of salt mixed with the innards of the fish. It created a slurry-like paste, full of amino acids, that would do the job, and it is smeared on the fish to be fermented and left for several months or longer.
Ever had durian? Kusaya is a similar experience. It tastes good but the smell is expressed best in terms we would normally use to describe poorly ventilated outhouses. It’s strong when the fish is taken from the “marinade” and then air-dried. But it grows much worse when it is grilled.
The fish can be shark or several species of mackerel; usually it’s aji, or horse-eye mackerel. Like a very small trout in size. After it’s grilled, it’s pulled into small pieces and eaten with rice.
Once you get a starter of the marinating paste going, it’s like sourdough; it spawns its own bacterial colony and will stay alive as long as you continue to feed it—which you do by adding more fish. There are some pots of the stuff that are literally more than a century old. Not too long ago, biologists discovered a species of bacteria hitherto unknown to science in the kusaya paste: Marinospirillium minutulum. So it’s a science experiment AND a tasty repast.

Cordially,

Margaret Lo
13th October 2005, 21:25
I like durian though not as well as some other folks. Sounds like kusaya is my kind of stinky snack. OK time to heat up dinner.

M

Mrose
18th October 2005, 05:13
Last weekend I was at the Shinjuku City Fair at the park down the street from my apartment. I was walking around, looking at all the little booths and got a wiff of something awful. I checked the bottom of my shoes, thinking that perhaps I had stepped in something a dog left behind. Nope that wasn't it. And no public toilets nearby. I turned to the next booth and there I saw them. I nice big display of them, neatly arranged with a sign that said くさや. I didn't buy any because I didn't know how to cook them and I was a little afraid to try. I am now on a quest for a restaurant or Izakaya that serves them in Shinjuku. :toot

Brian Owens
18th October 2005, 06:34
...Kusaya is a kind of fermented whole fish. The most common way of writing the word means literally, “stinking place.”
I've never tried kasuya, but being from a region of the USA with a heavy Nordic population I have been exposed to surstromming.

Exposed, in the way one might be exposed to toxic waste.

If that was any introduction, I think I'll leave the kasuya for others.

budoka_ch
18th October 2005, 19:59
I've never tried kasuya, but being from a region of the USA with a heavy Nordic population I have been exposed to surstromming.

Exposed, in the way one might be exposed to toxic waste.

If that was any introduction, I think I'll leave the kasuya for others.

Brian,

No lutefisk for you, eh? :) Me neither. That Stan Boreson* song is quite enough for me, thankyouverymuch.

Although (to change the topic slightly), last year I made the acquaintance of sweet lefse rolls. Mmm mmm (sound of lips smacking)

[Chris reminds self that he has yet to eat breakfast]

*=for the uninitiated, Stan Boreson is somewhat of a cult hero comic around the area my fellow NW budoka is speaking of. He has made something of a career lampooning his own ethnic heritage, and has made several cd's, including one containing a sidesplitting parody on O Tannenbaum entitled O Lutefisk.

Margaret Lo
28th October 2005, 16:27
This weekend at my house, I'm hosting a Stinky Fish Smackdown! It'll be a fight between Swedish Sour Herring and Malaysian Salty Fish. Sides of bleu cheese and natto if you please. :D

M

And for dessert..... Durian.

Andrew S
28th October 2005, 19:00
Beginning to sound like the banter between me and all the Japanese in my new workplace... I noted that one of the more common methods of preserving food in traditional Japanese cookery is to let it go off... scares away all the other bacteria!!

Margaret Lo
30th October 2005, 21:05
I've never tried kasuya, but being from a region of the USA with a heavy Nordic population I have been exposed to surstromming.

Exposed, in the way one might be exposed to toxic waste.

If that was any introduction, I think I'll leave the kasuya for others.


Surstromming! I had it last night at our stinky fish smackdown. My friend suggested that she open the can last since it might kill all appetite but we suggested that we may only be able to eat it while we were hungry.

Ominously the can sat, metal swelled out a bit from the gasses trapped inside. She pokes a hole and a deadly hiss ensued. Sulfur filled our noses. Durian! someone cried. We ran and opened our doors and windows, even the cats ran. That fish beat out everybody else, russian sprats, malaysian salty fish, herring roe etc.... :D

We ate it on pancake into which is crumbled boiled potato, sour cream and onion. It really did resemble durian in smell. So now we'll have to feed our swede some of that monstrous fruit of satan. We made our swede happy by being the only people who ever enjoyed that fish with her. Sadly, previous efforts were met with no takers.

M

Brian Owens
31st October 2005, 09:44
Surstromming!

...Ominously the can sat, metal swelled out a bit from the gasses trapped inside. She pokes a hole and a deadly hiss ensued. Sulfur filled our noses. Durian! someone cried. We ran and opened our doors and windows, even the cats ran. That fish beat out everybody else, russian sprats, malaysian salty fish, herring roe etc.... :D
The general rule I've been taught is to always open the can outdoors (or at least under running water). They can -- and have -- exploded on people opening them, with disasterous results if done on the kitchen counter or, worse still, at the table.

I'm glad you and your friends liked it.

Karasu Maru
1st November 2005, 02:13
The nose hair of people in the city grows up early compared with people in the country because the air in the city has been polluted.

Oshim Island and Miyakejima Island are not city, but employees at the kusaya factory in the island has long nose hairs because they breathe in the smell air all the year round awfully.

Nobody can tell the boundary of their nose hair and beard

If you grill kusaya in the apartment house, your room will become serious.
If you want to revenge on someone, it is better way to present him kusaya than to master martial arts.