Sanriku Seafood Culture was added to Your Favorites!
Sanriku Fukkō NP, Aomori / Iwate / Miyagi
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
Disease threatened French oyster farms in the late 1960s, so 10,000 tonnes of young Sanriku oysters were sent to France. After the 2011 tsunami, French groups sent equipment to help Sanriku’s oyster growers recover.
Hachinohe’s ichigo-ni combines sea urchin and abalone in a cloudy broth; the golden uni reminded diners of wild strawberries in morning mist. Once a fisherman’s shore meal, it became a soup for celebrations.
Sanriku fishermen use yamabakari: from offshore, they align two distant mountain landmarks to pinpoint a spot on the water. This helps them locate productive fishing grounds—and find the same spot again the next day.
In Kesennuma, sea urchin and abalone harvest opens only on announced kaiko days. One local fisher recalled that an opening could last just 2–3 hours, with harvesting limited to people who hold fishing rights.
Miyagi supplies about 80% of Japan’s sea squirts. Cultivated in Karakuwa for roughly 120 years, each hoya spends 2½–3 years at sea; summer flesh is said to contain 8 times winter’s glycogen.
In Ishinomaki, New Year ozoni may get its broth from hoya: salted sea squirt is grilled, dried, then rehydrated and served with local seafood, vegetables and mochi. The household dish received a 100-Year Food designation in 2023.
In 1989, Kesennuma oyster farmer Hatakeyama Shigeatsu and fellow fishers began planting broadleaf trees upstream, linking forest, river and bay. Their movement’s memorable name: “The forest is the sea’s lover.”
On Kuji’s Kosode Coast, women began diving for abalone and seaweed in the Meiji era while men were away on distant fisheries. They were called katsugi; a 1959 radio drama made “Northern-limit Ama” famous.
Akasaki oysters from Ofunato sold for ¥5,800 per kilogram at Tokyo’s Tsukiji market on October 1, 2012—a record price, according to the city. That is quite a price tag for a shellfish raised in a Sanriku bay.
Kesennuma serves raw shark heart as mōka no hoshi, often with vinegared miso. The shark’s meat also goes into fish cakes and its skin into leather goods, so the local shark trade reaches far beyond its famous fins.
In Ofunato, fisherman Komatsu Fujizo began wakame-farming trials around 1953 and succeeded in 1957. Later, Sato Keichi devised boil-and-salt processing that preserved the seaweed’s flavor and helped it spread along Sanriku.
In 1960, Ofunato fisherman Shigeru Chiba bought 300 young scallops to test “ear-hanging” cultivation; trials succeeded in 1961. Hung by the shell hinge from ropes, the scallops grow without taking in sand.
Yoshihama dried abalone was prized in Edo-period China: Sanriku dried seafood traveled overseas as Nagasaki tawaramono, and the region’s top-grade abalone became known as kippin-hao.
Kesennuma’s spring stew azara combines menuke fish offcuts with long-fermented cabbage and sake lees. It brings winter’s preserved pantry together with fish, in a dish that was once everyday food for local households.
The local donko fish was considered a money-luck charm: its big mouth takes plenty in, but its small rear lets little out. In Kesen, whole donko soup was offered at Ebisu-kō to pray for a good catch.
Kesennuma’s prized swordfish “harmonica” is a rare, bone-in strip at the base of the dorsal fin. Its closely spaced ribs resemble the instrument, and locals simmer or grill this small but distinctive cut.
In Noda, saltmakers say their method is more than 400 years old: 230 liters of seawater simmer over red-pine fires in brick kilns for 4 days, yielding about 40 kilograms. Some Sanriku diners dip sashimi in this salt.
Kuji’s Yuji Shisaku is described as the region’s sole remaining kelp shaver. He hand-shaves tough kombu into paper-thin oboro kelp, a delicate coastal craft eaten with sashimi, rice balls or soup.
Since 2005, Kuji’s High School Ama Club has introduced local teenagers to free-diving under veteran ama and involved them in community events—an unexpected next generation for this living fishing tradition.
Hirota Bay in Rikuzentakata is the only place where Ishikage shellfish is cultivated. This unusually large bivalve has cream-colored, tender, sweet flesh—a local bay’s very own specialty.
