Asia • 16.02.2012

Tsukiji Fish Market

Tsukiji Fish Market - one of the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market, although here you can find any other product. Then buy goods as wholesalers and fish restaurants in the Japanese capital and ordinary buyers. The market is located in central Tokyo and is one of the main attractions for foreign tourists. On the day here sold about 2,888 tons of goods (more than 450 species of fish and seafood) in excess of 2.8 billion yen.

1 worker checks the quality of the fish for sale. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

Tokyo urban wholesale market, better known as Tsukiji Fish Market is located next to the station and the Tsukiji subway Tsukidzisidzё Tokyo.

2 frozen tuna in anticipation of buyers during the auction before the New Year. (Photo: Koichi Kamoshida / Getty Images)

The market consists of two separate sections. The so-called "internal market" (Jap. 場内 市場 jo: nai Shijo :?) is a licensed wholesale market, where trades are conducted and fish processing takes place, and where the trays are about 900 licensed vendors. On the "outer market" (Jap. 場外 市場 jo: gai Shijo :?) can be found both wholesale and retail shops that sell Japanese kitchen utensils ready restaurant products, food products, and seafood.

3 The quality of fish products sold during the auction goes through several stages of verification. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

There is also a large number of restaurants, particularly specializing in the production of the land. Most of the shops in the foreign market closes before noon, and in the domestic even earlier.

4 Frozen fish were thawed before the auction. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

In the market you can find more than 400 different types of seafood, from small sardines to 300-kilogram tuna, from cheap seaweed to expensive caviar.

5 One of the wholesalers exports out of the store bought items at the auction. (Photo: Koichi Kamoshida / Getty Images)

About 700 thousand. Metric tons of seafood pass through the shelves of three fish markets in Tokyo, which in monetary terms is 600 billion yen (about 5.5 billion dollars). Directly through the Tsukiji fish market is held over 2 thousand. Metric tons of seafood per day.

6 Wholesaler checks the quality of evisceration of carcasses of tuna. (Photo: Koichi Kamoshida / Getty Images)

The number of registered employees varies between 60 to 65 thousand. Persons, which include wholesalers, accountants, auctioneers, company representatives and distributors.

7 Employee market exports frozen carcass tuna stock. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

Tsukiji Market is open almost every morning, except Sundays, holidays and the rare days with a break at the reception of the goods, which begins at 3:00 in the morning. The most impressive thing is unloading frozen tuna.

8 Worker market driven trolley with the packed seafood past piles of packaging material. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

After unloading, the auction houses (wholesalers in Japanese called 卸 売 業 者 orosiuri gyo: Smiling) assess the value and prepare the incoming items to the auction. Buyers (only those who have a license to participate) also evaluated the party fish in order to know for what they will fight to the highest bidder and what price are willing to pay.

9 Employee market carcass cuts of tuna into smaller portions. (Photo: Koichi Kamoshida / Getty Images)

Bidding starts at around 5:00 in the morning. As the number of buyers could include mediation Wholesalers (仲 卸 業 者 nakaorosi gyo: Smiling), that is, those who sell goods in the same market, as well as buyers of commodities for restaurants, food companies, and large retailers.

10 Cutting the fish carcasses. (Photo: Koichi Kamoshida / Getty Images)

Bidding usually end around 7:00 am. Then bought fish or loaded onto ships for delivery to the next item repetition, or on small carts transported to numerous shops inside the market. Their owners are prepared and cut up fish for subsequent retail sale.

11 Adjournment of a cup of tea. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

Razdelyvanie large fish such as tuna or swordfish comes with special care. For example, tuna is cut large bandsaw, and already cut parts - a very long knife (sometimes up to 1 meter in length), which is called Orosi hotё (Eng.) Hantё ​​hotё or maguro-botё.

Carcass 12 yellowfin tuna, which will soon cut into smaller pieces. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

Most active in the market are usually from 5:00 am to 8:00 am, and then it declines sharply. Most shops and stores closed by 11:00 am, and the market of the day at 13:00. Tourists can visit the market every day from 5:00 to 6:15 in the morning and watch the work of the market and all transactions with a specially designated area.

13 Fishmonger guts eel. (Photo: Cameron Spencer / Getty Images)

Compliance with the law of the purity of food should be inspectors from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

14 employee market pulls his cart through the narrow passages between the stalls. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

The first market in Tokyo was established Tokugawa Ieyasu during the Edo period for provisions fortress Edo (modern Tokyo), who invited for this purpose fishermen from Osaka. Fish, which remained excessive, sold near the bridge Nihonbashi (Eng.) Marketed under the name "uogasi» (魚 河岸, «Fishing Pier") - one of many of specialized markets, which was connected by channels with the Edo period (so called Tokyo to 1870h) .

15 Cutting fresh tuna before an auction on the eve of the New Year. (Photo: Koichi Kamoshida / Getty Images)

16 Cleaning the fish before selling. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

In August 1918, during the so-called rice riots, when more than a hundred cities and towns protested against the lack of food and the speculative activities of wholesalers, the Japanese parliament was forced to build new facilities for trade in food, especially affected the big cities.

17 waste after cutting fish. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

18 staff scurrying between market stalls. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

Central Wholesale Market was founded in March 1923. Great earthquake September 1, 1923 almost completely destroyed the central part of Tokyo with the market near Nihonbashi.

19 gutted eels prepared for transport. (Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images)

20 The whole tuna filled with ice. (Photo: Koichi Kamoshida / Getty Images)

Subsequently, the market was moved to Tsukiji district and at the end of the construction of modern infrastructure was completed in 1935 and started working at the Central Wholesale Market, together with markets in the areas of Coto and Kanda. Now Tokyo-based system of wholesale markets includes more than a dozen major markets and their affiliates that sell seafood, meat and so on. D.

21 Reporters shoot story about the sale of the giant tuna to block the morning news. (Photo: Koichi Kamoshida / Getty Images)

22 The seller waits for customers of containers with crabs. (Photo: Cameron Spencer / Getty Images)

23 Tray, which laid packaged seafood for private buyers. (Photo: Kiyoshi Ota / Getty Images)

24 Sellers advertise their products. (Photo: Kiyoshi Ota / Getty Images)

Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo

fish • Market • Tokyo • Japan

The world's largest fish market in Tokyo and called Tsukiji. Perhaps the word is not quite accurately convey the idea of ​​the biggest on the planet Focus fish trade. Then the following figures: Japan accounts for ten percent of the global fish consumption. Simply put, every tenth caught in oceans and seas fish gets to the Japanese. And 87% of the wholesale fish and seafood market in Japan focused on Tsukiji. In absolute terms, it is 660 thousand tons per year.
(Total 19 photos)

Source: Zhzhurnal / http: //kirulya.livejournal.com/

1) Even the name of the Tsukiji is directly related to the sea, because the sea of ​​this area of ​​Tokyo, literally and arose: Tsukiji translated as "made land", ie land reclaimed from the sea.

2) Long before dawn, hundreds of trucks come in Tsukiji - driven fish and marine reptiles from around the world. Barely glimmer light begins auction.

3) The majestic tuna carcasses ..

4) luxury pink salmon in plastic boxes, sealed in cellophane ...

5) Sea shells of all kinds and shapes with their bizarre inhabitants ...

6) giant crabs, bristling with powerful claws ...

7) already packaged in boxes ...

8) Nematocera lobsters ...

9) octopus ...

10) - and hundreds of thousands of different sea creatures, the vast majority of which a foreigner sees for the first time in my life, and now you do not suspect any of their existence, even more so, that all that can be eaten.

11) People who are busily walking about side by side with you on fish series, by the way, deserves perhaps more attention than the fish itself. It's idols in the world of Japanese haute cuisine. All the most famous chefs of the best restaurants and hotels in Tokyo-class begin their morning with the obligatory trip to the Tsukiji, where the catch is taken for its culinary achievements. In general, fish belly Tokyo - a Mecca for gourmets.

12) When the eye becomes accustomed to the incredible variety of fish and shellfish - if this is possible at all to get used to - the next thing you notice is the almost complete lack of fish odor. Boxes with marine catch comes with seiners have carefully sorted; fish and seafood washed, as a first-grader at the school line on 1 September. Considering all this exciting splendor, should, however, not to relax and look at the two on the sides: the narrow rows dashing sweep incredible design motorized carts with boxes of fish. Trolley mounted on a metal barrel with a burning coal. On top of the barrel wheel.

13) Motor vehicles, probably working as a locomotive firebox, giving this unit on wheels pretty decent speed. Japanese stands on the cart and steers. Where he taxied the next moment, knows only himself. Probably soon Teamsters with their antediluvian carriages replace any intelligent machines or robots, but from Tsukiji lose some of its charm today.

14) Even more to lose Tsukiji, if to some hyper-vigilance sanitary inspector will come to mind to close the tiny restaurants, perched on the edges of the market, where now you can enjoy sushi and sashimi from the freshest, just gutted fish. By the way, the owners of the market puzzled the creation of the site .

15) At the Tsukiji daily selling 3000 tuna weighing over 200 tons. Of one thousand shops here almost half focuses only on the tuna, or maguro in Japanese. However, one name in the case of tuna in Japan will not be enough. Species of tuna there are so many; Japanese are more likely appreciate the so-called "blue" tuna. And it - the fatty part of the underbelly, called "Rotor".

16) In view of this meat tuna is not a raspberry-red, which is usually served in sushi bars, and pink with white veins. It is from the "Rotor" obtained the best gourmet sushi and sashimi. The cost, of course, appropriate. At the fish market Tsukiji pounds of "blue" tuna is worth an average of $ 150; "Rotor" of such fish will be even more expensive.

17) If you look at the labels on the boxes of tuna, which come in the morning at the Tsukiji fish market, it turns out that they arrived almost from all over the world, but mainly from the Mediterranean Sea. This is not a "wild" caught on the high seas tuna and fish with Mediterranean farms where tuna are bred specifically for the Japanese market. The trick here is this. "Wild" is similar to tuna torpedo - it cuts through the water at speeds up to seventy miles per hour. Its meat contains little fat, because in search of food such tuna is doing hundreds of miles a day. Another matter Privolnoe habitation on ryboferme where tuna is provided three meals a day; from this and start up his prized by Japanese gourmets zhirok. Most of the tuna farms in the Mediterranean, by the way, is owned by Japanese owners.

18) Here it is - a traditional green Japanese horseradish wasabi (here it is not a powder, as in commercial establishments, and freshly prepared)

19) Zoom.

All these and many other little tricks explain why the fish auction in Tsukiji boil no less passion than on the Tokyo Stock Exchange . After all, competition among Japanese cooks mad: in this country per capita are more restaurants than anywhere else in the world that makes the best chefs in the crack of dawn to rush to Tsukiji in search of a better explanation.