🐟 Steamed blood clams (akagai garan mushi/akagai no kara mushi)

The salt water-packed wetlands that sit between fresh and sea water are called brackish lakes. There are 18 such lakes in Japan, and Nakaumi Lake, spanning the border between Shimane and Tottori Prefectures, is one of them. Among the foodstuffs representative of Nakaumi Lake is the blood clam. The formal name of this clam in Japanese is salubowgai and it is of a different type than what is generally known as a blood clam. Though the two look alike, a salubowgai's shell has about 32 grooves while a blood clam's shell has about 42 grooves. The sizes of the two also differ, with the salubowgai being smaller. In the Kojiki, it was a blood clam that healed the wound of the Hare of Inaba, whose skin had been ripped off. Until about the third decade of the Showa period (1950s), Nakaumi Lake was number one in Japan for blood clam production. However, because of land reclamation projects and a decrease in water quality, the size of catches there has been decreasing. By the sixth decade of Showa (1980s), the problem had become bad enough that the shipment of clams ceased. The second decade of the Heisei period (2000s) saw advancements in aquaculture, and in Heisei 25 (2013) the shipment of clams was restarted. In the Izumo region, blood clams are steamed with their shells on and then eaten. This dish in Japanese is called akagai no kara mushi or, locally, akagai garan mushi. There are several theories as to the origin of the word garan. Some say that it is an accented pronunciation of the standard word for shell, kara; others say that it comes from the sound made when shells are washed over a strainer to remove the sand stuck in their grooves, garan garan.