If you love to eating Tuna, then you might love this photo below for my Today’s Japan Photo series. The tuna are being inspected before the auction starts at Tsukiji Fish Market [築地市場], which is the world’s biggest wholesale fish and seafood market.
This photo was uploaded by flickr user kalandrakas. I thought the photo is really well taken and reflects the cold yet busy atmosphere at the fish market.
Just a little more information on Tsukiji fish market [築地市場]:
Tsukiji fish market [築地市場] is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world and also one of the largest wholesale food markets of any kind. The market is located in Tsukiji in central Tokyo, and is a major attraction for foreign visitors.
The market opens most mornings except Sundays and holidays and some infrequent closing days in the week at 3:00 a.m. with the arrival of the products by ship, truck and plane from all over the world. Particularly impressive is the unloading of tons of frozen tuna. The auction houses (wholesalers known in Japanese as oroshi gyōsha) then estimate the value and prepare the incoming products for the auctions. The buyers (licensed to participate in the auctions) also inspect the fish to estimate which fish they would like to bid for and at which price.
The auctions start around 5:20 a.m. Bidding can only be done by licensed participants. These bidders include intermediate wholesalers (nakaoroshi gyōsha) who operate stalls in the marketplace and other licensed buyers who are agents for restaurants, food processing companies, and large retailers.
The auctions usually end around 7:00 a.m. Afterward, the purchased fish is either loaded onto trucks to be shipped to the next destination or on small carts and moved to the many shops inside the market. There the shop owners cut and prepare the products for retail. In case of large fish, for example tuna and swordfish, cutting and preparation is elaborate. Frozen tuna and swordfish are often cut with large band saws, and fresh tuna is carved with extremely long knives (some well over a meter in length) called oroshi hocho, maguro-bocho, or hancho hocho.
I’ve seen this in a documentary sometime ago. I would love to see this place in person someday.