🍱 Fuku Sashi

Yamaguchi Prefecture's prefectural fish is the fugu, a well-known, high-end fish that is representative of the prefecture. The Shimonoseki and Hagi areas are particularly famous for their fishing grounds, and longline fishing, the mainstay of fugu fishing, was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture and has been improved over the years. The Shimonoseki area has a particularly long history of fugu eating, and is known as the home of fugu, with a high concentration of processing plants and restaurants, and natural and cultured fugu from all over the country. There was once a time when eating fugu was prohibited. This was because Hideyoshi Toyotomi issued a ban on eating fugu after a soldier died from eating fugu during his expedition to Korea. Later, Hirobumi Ito was impressed by the taste of fugu, and the ban was lifted only in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1888. The first restaurant officially authorized to serve fugu cuisine, Shunpanro, is also famous as the site where the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty was concluded. Nevertheless, it is said that the general public still ate fugu, and at that time it was sometimes used as an ingredient in miso soup. After the ban on eating fugu was lifted, the city of Shimonoseki, the site of the ban, developed along with fugu. In the Shimonoseki area, fugu is called "fuku" in reference to good luck and fortune, and its sashimi is called "fuku sashimi. The sashimi is sliced thin enough to be seen through, and is served in a variety of ways, such as "Kiku-zari," which looks like a chrysanthemum flower, and "Tsuru-zari," which resembles a crane.