Zako: Trash Fish is Treasure - Zero Waste Life

since ancient times the japanese have believed that a life force resides in all creations [Music] valuing and caring for the things we use a zero waste life [Music] pointing the way to better living for a new era [Music] odawara 80 kilometers west of tokyo with an abundance of fish throughout the year this is one of japan's leading fishing ports the early morning auctions are lively with buyers and sellers the day's catch seems to sell in an instant but some fish don't attract quite as much interest in japanese they're known as zako it means fish with little or no value with few potential buyers such fish are often used as fertilizer or simply thrown away but in a town not too far from odawara we find someone making better use of them runs a small seafood restaurant [Music] he specializes in dishes made with zako zako has a broad range of meanings [Music] it includes fish that are too small to meet shipping standards those that aren't commonly eaten as well as fish that are simply hard to sell [Music] crystal [Music] [Music] fish like this that are a bit difficult to handle make up a large part of the zucko category roadie escala is known to be delicious but its particular bone structure makes smaller ones harder to prepare and to eat which is why they also get labeled as zako [Music] honey [Music] in the hands of a master these unpopular fish seldom used and often discarded are transformed into delightful delicacies carefully avoiding the poison spines the smelly mottled spine foot is transformed into sublime sashimi [Music] [Music] the small bony roadie escala scraped and finely chopped to make a delicate paste [Music] [Music] [Music] most people have no idea that a lunar lion fish is even edible [Music] but chef kai knows how to bring out the best in every fish [Music] [Applause] [Music] you you'd never find the fish he uses at an ordinary fish place hey [Music] even kids love the food he makes um [Music] um [Music] hmm [Music] kai has loved fish and fishing since childhood after graduating from university he chose to work at a seafood restaurant [Music] three years later while buying fish at a local harbor he saw zucco being treated like trash this awareness inspired him to open his current restaurant [Music] [Music] he gradually began wondering how zucco came to be in the first place since last year he's been going out on local fishing boats [Music] today they're out looking for mackerel and sardines [Music] but they don't exactly choose what they catch [Music] all kinds of fish get caught in their nets [Music] fish that are hard to sell get set aside [Music] after going out on the boats kai realized something zucko gets caught even when it's not wanted [Music] and the fishermen don't want the fish they worked so hard to catch to go to waste um [Music] foreign it's been two years since kai started offering zako in his restaurant here and the prices for zucko at the local fish market are gradually rising [Music] [Music] it [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] you

Channel: NHK WORLD-JAPAN

Views: 402,105

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Id: pG5108crMKM

Length: 15min 5sec (905 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 01 2022