EVERYTHING IS FOR AUCTION. FISH TOO
The hour was early. The hall was dark and stale. The patched up concrete floor was stained with grease, and the bidders looked no better. This was no Sotheby’s.
Nestled between the Sumida River and the upscale Tokyo district of Ginza, lies the world’s largest wholesale fish market – The Tsukiji Shijo. The place is so big it also doubles as the biggest wholesale food market of any kind. How big is it? 65,000 authorized distributors, dealers, auctioneers, accountants and other officials work there Mon-Sat. They buy, sell and process half a Billion tons of fish and seafood every year, grossing a total trade volume of six Billion Dollars (that’s $6,000,000,000).
If you ever wondered, the Japanese love fish very much.
Impressive as they are, the above figures can’t truly deliver what Tsukiji really is. Think about the biggest night market you’ve ever been to, and you won’t even come close. Opening at 3:00am the market is a bustling kingdom solely dedicated to the sale, purchase, dismemberment, and packaging of anything you can imagine (plus few creatures you didn’t) that started its life somewhere deep inside one of the seven sees.
And by anything, I really mean anything – from worthless seaweeds to Caspian Caviar and controversial Whale parts.
It’s Tuna time
Like every other kingdom, Tsukiji Shijo has a Queen. Her name is Tuna, and this mega market ticks according to the rhythm of its trade. From all over the world Tuna fish congregate to the epicenter of the massive market – the Tuna Auction Hall. Blue or Yellow, fresh or frozen, Mediterranean or Atlantic, big or slightly less big, all varieties are traded, and it all starts roughly at 4 O’clock in the morning. To bear witness to this auction is to be in culinary paradise. Or hell, if you happen to be a Vegan…
I’m not a Vegan – although I do admit to eating a fruit and vegetable every now and then – and the auction was quite a sight. It starts with an endless line of Tunas arranged by size, shape, color and probably by additional other criteria only a Japanese could understand. The fish don’t move. The auction does. Armed with a stool, a bell, a clerk and a handyman with a bucket of paint, the announcer hops from one line to another followed by an army of bidders. They all dress blue and all ready for the action. When it starts, it’s noisy and fast. The announcer shouts the crowd shouts back. Somewhere in this Gibberish mayhem, a deal is closed. The clerk writes something, the handyman paints the name of the winner on the fish and the party moves to the next batch.
Sushi time
When it’s over, the winner’s team arrives with strangely-looking mini pickups. They quickly haul the prize and heads straight into the labyrinth of alleyways that make Tsukiji so hard to navigate.
I’m following them as best I can, but loses the pickups after a short while. Not to worry. What I found was certainly worth getting lost for. Hundreds upon hundreds of mini shops, all frantically busy in dismembering, cleaning wrapping and packaging almost every kind of creature you’ve ever seen swimming, crawling or growing in an aquarium.
It felt like a Lost in Translation version of a BBC documentary gone psychedelic. A “Foodie’s” dream.
Speaking of food, it was 6:30 and I was getting hungry. Since I woke up at 2am and was now surrounded by food for a whole 3hrs, it was only a matter of time until I try it on myself.
It took me half an hour to find my way out. As I was heading out of the market, I located a string of family-owned Sushi joint right in front of the main gate. I had no idea what the billboards said. I can presume it was something like “the freshest sushi in Tokyo” or “straight from the gate”… who knows.
I can only say that it was 7:15am in the morning and the fish tasted like a good enough reason to lose another night in the deep belly of Tsukiji.
I’ sooo hungry now!
:-)))