(1) Why Makurazaki became a fishing port
With its natural harbor, the fishing industry has long flourished in
Makurazaki. In particular, a lot of blueback fish, as well as bonito
and tuna, can be caught locally, which is why it flourished as a
fishing port.
At the time, there were no techniques for preserving fresh
fish, so the catch needed to be landed immediately and either
grilled, dried, or salted to preserve it. So we can imagine the
unique lifestyle of a fishing village would have been present here.
(2) Establishment of processing techniques
Eventually, smoking techniques arrived, and it was now possible to
prepare bushi, smoked and dried fish fillets, which could be stored
long-term. The best-known of these is katsuobushi.
This allowed fishermen to focus on fishing, while other
residents were responsible for the katsuobushi production process -
a division of labor in which the entire community worked together to
produce goods.
Outside the fishermen, the roles played by men
and women were separated: the men did the processing, and the women
were responsible for trading. This trading was initially done by
heading to the lands beyond the hills, and bartering, but this too
eventually transitioned into cash sales.
(3) Stories from our founding
As time went on, more and more companies appeared to handle the processing that the community once did as a whole. After the war, the grandfather and great-grandfather of Kohei Tateishi, our current president, returned from fighting and set up a business in a small dilapidated shop. With much hard work, they were able to create top-quality katsuo “honkare” bushi, the highest grade of smoke-dried fish. Here, I (Kohei Tateishi) would like to tell you something my grandfather used to say. One day, when he was pulling his cart to the morning market auction hall as usual to buy bonito, he was unable to buy a single one he liked. My grandfather was most put out by that, and refused to do any more work that day. He dragged along a friend who had also failed to buy any good bonito off to the local diner to get quite drunk on shochu. When I was first told this story, I just dismissed it as some old memory. But looking back on it now, it strikes me that it was such a free time.
(4) A shocking encounter
Our company became a corporation some thirty years after our founding. The previous president had a shocking encounter when he was apprenticed at a katsuobushi wholesaler in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi - he learned about sababushi, made from mackerel rather than bonito. At the time, Nihonbashi was home to a regular auction for different bushi processed all around the country. Sababushi was traded at a relatively stable price in Satsuma, but in this auction, sababushi from Satsuma (especially sababushi from Yakushima) was being traded at extremely high prices. Encountering Satsuma sababushi being traded at such extremely high prices, he realized that the same sababushi could, depending on where it was traded, be worth much less or much more. This gave him a renewed sense of pride in Satsuma sababushi, and he resolved to start making sababushi in Satsuma. After finishing his apprenticeship in Nihonbashi and returning home, he started plugging away at making sababushi, always with the idea of creating something good in his head. This attitude has now been passed down to the current president.
