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Fish and seafood from Japan

Konowata (salted sea-cucumber gut)このわた

Konowata is the gut of the sea cucumber, cleaned of sand, rinsed in seawater and mixed with a little over 10 % salt. After two or three days in salt it is ready to eat, a soft, briny shiokara counted among Japan's three great delicacies. Modern shop samples are much less salty.

Fully documentedFish and seafood4 days – 5 days

Recipe

Konowata (salted sea-cucumber gut), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Koji Horaguchi, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceThe Nanao Bay makers measure the gut by volume and add a little over a tenth of salt; no batch size is given.
Sea cucumber intestinesFrom sea cucumbers kept about two days in a sea pen to empty their guts; measured by volume in a 1-shō measure[kakiuchi2012]
SaltA little over 10 % (1割強)Mixed into the measured gut[kakiuchi2012]

Total time across the recorded steps: 4 days – 5 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: live sea cucumbers in a sea pen, emptying out their sand

Step 1 of 4
Let the sea cucumbers empty their guts
Time
2 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Nanao Bay sea cucumbers are fished from early November to mid-April. Output: sea cucumbers that have spat out sand and mud.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Konowata is the gut of the sea cucumber, cleaned of sand, rinsed in seawater and mixed with a little over 10 % salt. After two or three days in salt it is ready to eat, a soft, briny shiokara counted among Japan's three great delicacies. Modern shop samples are much less salty. Made in 4 steps over 4 days – 5 days. The longest step, rinse, drain and salt, takes 2–3 days (Kakiuchi K 2012). Salt is at least 10 % (Kakiuchi K 2012).

Key numbers
Main step2–3 daysReported[kakiuchi2012]Rinse, drain and salt
Saltat least 10 %Reported[kakiuchi2012][nakaguchi2018]Rinse, drain and salt

What makes this one different

Unlike squid shiokara, konowata is only salted gut, with no flesh, and it is ready in two or three days. The same animals also give kuchiko (dried gonads) and iriko (boiled, dried sea cucumber).

Related ferments

Variants

  • KuchikoThe gonads from the same animals, hung on cords in a triangle and sun-dried.
  • Konowata-zakeHot sake poured over konowata.

Safety

Shop salted seafoods now fall into low-salt (about 5 %) and high-salt (10 % or more) groups. Low-salt squid shiokara must be kept refrigerated, and Vibrio parahaemolyticus is the named food-poisoning risk. The shop konowata tested had only 3.7 % salt, so keep it cold.

Hazards the sources name: Vibrio parahaemolyticus, a named risk in low-salt (about 5 %) salted seafoods.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Konowata appears among Noto Province's goods in the Heian-period Engishiki. Noto's Hatakeyama lords sent konowata tubs to the Ashikaga shoguns, the 1603 Japanese–Portuguese dictionary lists "Cono vata", and the Maeda of Kaga sent Nakai konowata to the Tokugawa shoguns.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [kakiuchi2012] Kakiuchi K., Kigoshi Y. 2012, 能登のナマコ生産と食用文化史の研究 (Sea cucumber production and food culture history of Noto), Kanazawa University Archaeology Bulletin 33:63–82 (fieldwork at a Nanao Bay maker)paper
  2. [nakaguchi2018] Nakaguchi Y. 2018, Traditional salted foods in Japan, the characteristics changes, bacterial contamination, and food poisoning risk, Bulletin of the Society of Sea Water Science, Japan 72:288–294 (Table 3)paper
  3. [eiyo1959] Nutritive elements in salted marine appetizers, Eiyo To Shokuryo 11(6):358 (1959) (B vitamins, including B12, in salted sake appetizers)paper
  4. [s1] Japanese Wikipedia, このわた (it summarises Kakiuchi and Kigoshi 2012)wiki