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Go to just about any seashore in
Japan-Tokyo Bay, Osaka Bay, Nagoya Bay, Hakata Bay, or other places-and have a good look at posts or jetties in the sea. You'll notice blackish, oval shells about 5 cm long clinging to the sides. They are called mussels. Lovers of Italian food are delighted to see them piled on top of a plate of spaghetti in a restaurant. Mussels originally come from a broad area of sea ranging from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean. They arrived in Japan on the bottoms of ships sailing back and forth between that part of the world and Japan. They were first spotted in Japan in Kobe Harbor in 1935, and quickly spread throughout the archipelago.
The fame of these shellfish has spread beyond Italy. In France, mussels (or moules in French) are deep-fried like potatoes and called moules frites, they've become a favorite fastfood for ordinary people. In fact, moules frites are even more popular in Belgium than they are in France. They are practically synonymous with Belgian cuisine. That is why the best mussel restaurants in Paris and Brussels almost always recommend Belgian beer to accompany the dish.
In Japan, the igai(called nitarigai in some provinces) is a relative of the mussel family. It lives in deeper water than mussels, and can grow three times larger. In ancient times, the shells were collected as a type of tax by the central government. Today, too, they have considerable value. The shell of a European mussel appears slightly more purplish than an igai, and so the former is sometimes called murasakigai.
Mussels are such a popular food item in Europe that they are farmed in France and Italy. Strange to say, they seem to pass unnoticed in Japan despite their abundance
in the sea. It is a great mistake to think that Japanese mussels are not the "real thing" and European mussels are. It's a pity that only some marine specialists and gourmets appreciate the flavor and delicacy of Japanese mussels.
Mussels are hated in Hiroshima and other oyster farming areas. They attach themselves to the shells of the oysters and eat the plankton meant for the oysters. This prevents the growth of the oysters. Oyster farmers pry the mussels off the oyster shells and ship them to market, but there is little demand for them. In Japan,
these mussels are a luxury few can afford.
In Japan, people who fish from sea walls and jetties frequently use mussels as bait. The poor mussels
are collected in handfuls, and then stomped on to crush the shells. Japanese waters have recently
become clean again, but there are still obvious pockets of pollution. Probably no one who saw a mussel
in a polluted area would wish to eat it. However, there are still plenty of tasty and clean mussels in Japanese Waters. If you ask at a first-class restaurant in Japan whether the mussels they served were caught in Japan or in Europe, shouldn't they answer with pride, "They are from Mie Prefecture," or "They
are from lwate Prefecture"?
