Eating whale today at my Japanese elementary school

[Foodietopo]

I've been teaching for 3 years in Japan and today is the annual whale school lunch. I know this might be a touchy subject, but it's a very weird tradition here in Japan.

For the occasion, they will have a very old man come to school to tell the story of how whale meat was pretty much they only source of proteine in the harder days. I had an old teacher almost tear up last year when they told me about the whale eating after the war.

I've had whale maybe 4 or 5 times since I've moved to Japan, it's not my favorite, but I eat it with the kids. Whale meat is very different, a little tough.

Today's menu was whale with a ketchup sauce and sauted onions, rice and miso soup.

I know that whale hunting is frown upon by most of the world. Do you have whale eating experience that you would care to share?

Edited January 28, 2011 by Foodietopo (log)

[ChrisTaylor]

Can you describe the flavour? I'd be curious to know how it compares to, say, beef or buffalo or venison.

Edited January 28, 2011 by ChrisTaylor (log)

[Foodietopo]

We ate the dark meat which is not too fatty. It's dark red like a tuna steak when raw and when it's cooked, it looks and has the texture of a 1 cm thick steak well done. It's not beef jerky hard, but it's has a very specific texture.

It's not fishy at all, it's more like meat. After all it's a mammal. I would maybe compare to moose meat. I've had buffalo once, but it was a long time ago.

If you push back the fact that whale meat has a lot of mercury, I find it pretty delicious.

I've seen whale fat in some shops and whale bacon. The whale bacon is not bad, but I try to stay away from big chunks of fat.

I sat next to a 6 years old kid today and it was her first time eating whale and she told me it was delicious.

Edited January 28, 2011 by Foodietopo (log)

[Chufi]

I had whale only once, in a Japanese restaurant here in the Netherlands. I wrote about it in this blogpost here (the picture of the dish, uni on a salad of seaweed and whalefat, is the 5th foodpic (the one before the toro).)

I was there with a Japanese friend and both he and the waitress who served us were quite apologetic when this dish came to the table, it seemed like they were scared that I did not want to eat it.

I enjoyed it, it was chewy and not all that fatty, although I liked the uni that was also in the dish better.

In my blogpost I wrote that I realized that eating whale is a touchy subject and that there are many implications that I could discuss, but that I had made the decision to only describe the way it tasted and would leave the environmental and political and animal welfare discussions for another day.

An anonymous commenter then posted the following comment:

"You should be ashamed of yourself. It's people like you, who are willing to pay for food like this, who are responsible for the destruction of the eco-system."

[ChrisTaylor]

"You should be ashamed of yourself. It's people like you, who are willing to pay for food like this, who are responsible for the destruction of the eco-system."

At least you can say you've achieved something significant in life, right?

[Prawncrackers]

I've had whalemeat once on my second visit to Tsuikiji market. It was breaded and deepfried on a stick. Delicious it was, very meaty, not fishy and the cut I had was very tender. The taste was very much of red mildly gamey meat, like ostrich strangely. I would definitely have it again but maybe in a different preparation because if you bread and deepfry anything on a stick then it's gonna taste good!