🍱 Tara jiru

Asahi Town, located on the eastern edge of Toyama Prefecture, is rich in nature, with the Northern Alps on its mountain side and the beautiful jade coast where jade ore is extracted on the Sea of Japan side. Tara-jiru" is a traditional soup that originated in this town. The area around National Route 8 along the coast is lined with restaurants that serve cod roe, and is also called "Tara-jiru Kaido (cod soup road). Asahi Town used to have an abundant catch of cod, and to warmly welcome the men who went fishing, the fishermen's wives gathered driftwood, boiled a large pot, added miso paste and cod, and stewed it to make the soup. All the fishermen gathered around the pot and sat in a circle on the beach to eat the dish. The key to the delicious taste is to cut a whole Alaska Pollack into chunks and stew it vigorously, using the meat, head, liver, milt, and cod roe. At that time, cod, which tends to lose its freshness easily, was sold at local beaches as dried cod or grilled as a whole fish, but nowadays, due to rising sea water temperatures, it is rarely caught locally, and products from Tohoku and Hokkaido are used.