[Harima no Kuchime (Harima's Mouth Woman)]Harikai's "smoked" series

Introducing "Harikai's original "smoked" series [Harima no Kuchime]

One of Himeji's specialties is "karasumi" (dried mullet roe). Himeji City's website describes it as a processed food made by pickling mullet roe caught in the clean waters of the Seto Inland Sea in salt, then removing the salt, and drying it in the sun.

When we looked at the mullet fishing grounds, we found that male mullet sardines were turned into fertilizer. We felt that the milt was a "waste" and developed a product called "smoked milt" as a new specialty of Himeji, naming it "Harima no Kuchime" (Harima's Mouth Woman).

Origin of the name

When asked, "What kind of albacore is this?" we were often asked, "What kind of albacore is this? we often received a response, "Don't they stink? It is true that mullet is often thought of as a typical smelly fish. This is because during Japan's period of rapid economic growth, rivers became polluted, and mullet were often seen in the estuaries of those rivers, and mullet at that time were indeed smelly. On the other hand, from the Edo period to the early Showa period, mullet were so highly prized that they were actively farmed in Tokyo Bay.

When we researched mullet in various ways, we found that mullet were mentioned in the myth of Yamayukihiko and Umiyukihiko written in the Chronicles of Japan. Two kinds of fish are mentioned there, one is Akame, meaning "sea bream," and the other is Kuchime, meaning "mullet. Isn't it amazing that "mullet" appears in the myth as if it were equal to "sea bream"? Hoping to restore the image of mullet, we incorporated "Kuchime" into the naming of our smoked products.

The development of Harima no Kuchi-onna, which began with "mottainai" (what a waste), led to the advocacy of a new ecological style, and became the foundation for winning the Himeji City Monozukuri Development Incentive Award two years in a row.