Editor's note: It was a honeymoon trip with his newlywed wife, but Matt Goulding fell head-on into the Japanese food world and couldn't extricate himself. He went from Hakodate, the "sea urchin holy place" to Osaka's Osaka's Osaka restaurant, and from the kaiseki cuisine that has

"Rice, Noodles, Fish: The Soul of Japanese Popular Diet"; (US) Matt Goulding, translated by Xie Mengzong; Ideal Country Guangxi Normal University Press

Hokkaido's past is not very attractive. It is a history full of neglect and suppression, displacement and discrimination, abandoned children and vagrants. Some people compare Hokkaido to the wilderness of the western United States, and the similarities between the two are indeed not difficult to infer - in addition to the poor government, there are also many unscheming people who have nowhere to go and have descendants of the gentry to move here in large numbers and become people who have become aliens, which also brings a lot of shadows on the lives of local natives.

Read historical records. In the past, Hokkaido was called " Hokkaido ". The main residents here Ainu are considered descendants of the Jomon people. They have the habit of nomadic people and believe that everything has spirits. The Ainu people had almost no contact with the Japanese. It was not until 1605 that the situation changed when the Tokugawa Shogunate granted the privilege of trade with the "Northern Barbarians" to the Matsue-family entrenched in southern Hokkaido.

By bartering, the Ainu people used fish, kumbu and fur that were not available in other parts of Japan to exchange for rice, sake and various tools that were missing in their hometown. However, Matsumae's vassal became more and more aggressive in addition to trading. It not only restricted the scope of action of the Ainu people and prevented them from leaving their territory, but also prohibited the Ainu people from trading with others. It established its monopoly with its arrogant force, and also destroyed the local culture. From time to time, it killed the Ainu leaders just because of some rifts.

Although the Ainu people and the Japanese interacted more and more, the Hokkien still formed a world of their own. It was not until the Meiji Restoration was in full swing. In 1869, the new government renamed Hokkaido and actively promoted immigration. One of the main reasons was to establish a barrier to block the Russian forces in the north who were eyeing Japanese territory.

As Hokkaido's status becomes more and more important, the Japanese government also realized that the too unique Ainu culture may bring variables to the Honshu Island that was finally consolidated and settled, so it began to strictly implement oppression policies, completely ban the Ainu people from using Ainu language and exercising religious rituals, and also forced them to give up their original habits and live in the Japanese way. Although the Ainu settlements scattered across southern Hokkaido finally survived, their hometown has long been no longer unique to the tribe.It was not until 2008 that the Japanese government officially recognized the Ainu people as "a native nation with its unique language, religion and culture." There are about 25,000 Ainu people in Hokkaido today. With tourism income and government subsidies, they are trying to revive the traditions and customs that have been lost in the long years.

Just like in "Game of Thrones", the people who were responsible for protecting the Great Wall in Desperate were thieves and villains. The Japanese who settled in Hokkaido in the early days were also marginalized people in society, such as ex-convicts, illegitimate children or declining gentry. They found a glimmer of hope in this northern land, hoping to get rid of the unbearable past and start over again. The newly established Hokkaido administrative agency is also happy to see it and welcomes their arrival.

After World War II, the Japanese who originally occupied the nine northeastern provinces of China were repatriated in large numbers, thus Hokkaido added many new faces that wanted to start the second spring of life in this northern border of Japan. In 1971, the Japanese government decided to strengthen the connection between Hokkaido and other lands in its country, so it embarked on an ambitious tunnel construction plan, which completely changed the future of this northern land.

Qinghan Tunnel is the deepest and longest undersea tunnel in the world. Even if you move forward at a speed of 140 kilometers per hour, it will take twenty-two minutes to walk the complete journey. Hakodate on the other end of the undersea tunnel is not only the gateway to Hokkaido, but also for some time, it was one of the few entrances and exits in Japanese history that could communicate with the outside world. In 1854, US Navy Brigadier General Matthew Perry forced Japan to open its national gates, and Hakodate was one of the two ports that opened with it, and it was also the front line of Japan that allowed American or Russian ships to berth across the ocean. Before the Sapporo emerged, and before the Hakodate Fire in 1934, Hakodate was the most important city in Hokkaido. To this day, the past still has its glory—the open harbor, neat and bright warehouse, the cable car that can see the Orthodox Church of Motomachi Yamabe, and the European-style pentagram-shaped city " Gorenoku " located on the south side of the city. If you climb Hakodate Mountain at night, you can look around and see the city area shining with bright light, which looks like an hourglass, and you can vaguely see the blazing lights of squid fishing ships rising and falling with the sea.

However, what best reflects the proudness of Hakodate today is the morning market that displays fresh fishing catches along the sidewalks around the Central Station, making people suddenly feel in an aquarium that can enjoy a lot of food, and also fully reveals the prosperity and vitality of Japan's fishery.

Hokkaido can be said to be the sending place for high-end sushi culture around the world. The cold sea water around the island has nurtured Japan's top seafood for many years. In addition to hairy crabs, salmon, scallops and squid, sea urchins are also indispensable. Any fishery product with the name of "Hokkaido" will be regarded as a high-end product in the market. Even if it is expensive, first-class sushi chefs from all over the world will still pay the bill willingly.

Most of the catches in Hokkaido will be sent to Tsukiji Market in Tokyo, and will be shipped to other prefectures in Japan and around the world after auction and packaging. However, this northern island still retains some good things for its family, most of which are concentrated in the 200-meter-long market in Hakodate City.

Hakodate Morning Market displays seafood wonders from Hokkaido's wangyang.

I saw fish, shrimps, crabs and shells full of ocean essence exuded fragrance, telling you that you should buy them now and eat them now. Live sea urchins with purple spikes pile up into mountains, cut them open with scissors and scrape them off with chopsticks; scallops with shells are roasted with a musket until the edges are charred, and the juice inside is fresh and sweet. If you are willing to spend some money, you can always find a young fishmonger somewhere in the market who is willing to dig a spoonful of fresh salmon eggs and deliver them to your mouth.

After all, this is Japan. Everyone can tell how the scallops of yesterday are different from today's, and freshness cannot be faked. But Japan is sometimes a bit too far in pursuing extreme vitality. In the middle of the morning market, there is a huge sink filled with live squids, and there are several fishing rods next to it. I paid 500 yen and threw the fishing line into the water. Just as I tried my best to pick up the constantly twisting cephalopod creatures in the sink, a group of Chinese tourists next to me kept cheering me up in Chinese.After finally dragging the squid out of the sink, it sprayed a large amount of water column at the surrounding audience, which made these people even more excited. The squid was then thrown by the fishmonger onto the cutting board. Under the long knife in the hand of a serious man, it was sliced ​​into a plate of sashimi, and even his body was not even too late to stop trembling. The squid is sweet and soft, but the tentacles are still squirming and wanting to find a place to settle down. It took me a lot of effort to swallow them.

Like in other parts of Japan, this experience is warm and impressive, but it also makes people feel at a loss. No wonder locals don’t often visit this type of market—they would rather go to a place where Shanghai people who don’t have much money to enjoy squid. I immediately discovered that what really attracted locals was "don rice", or it could be referred to as "don", which means "bow". This name covers a variety of rice bowl dishes filled with delicious ingredients on the rice: "Parent-mouth bowl" with eggs and chicken, "Eel bowl" with grilled eels or "Ten-bow" stuffed with tempura, etc. These bowls are delicious, but for you and me, and for all the flesh and blood people in the world, the "seafood bowl" filled with a bowl full of colorful and rich seafood like a rainbow is what I dream of. Warm rice, cool sashimi, with a small piece of mustard and a little soy sauce, it is like tasting sushi, but in comparison, it is less pretentious and expensive.

"Kikuyo Canteen" (Miōkukuomei Canteen) provides more than 30 kinds of seafood bowls, among which the rice bowl that includes sea urchins, salmon, salmon eggs, quail eggs and avocado is even more wonderful like a kaleidoscope. I ordered the "Hokkaido Heroes Special Selection" for myself - in a full bowl, gathering four heroes, scallops, salmon eggs, crab meat and sea urchins. It may be an exaggeration to claim that a rice bowl that seems so ordinary can change life, but as fish eggs burst out from their mouths with a sweet ocean atmosphere, the sweet scallops melt in their mouths, and the sea urchins melt like cheese, I feel that my heart is shaking and shaking.

In the next few days, whether it was seven in the morning when the sun and the fish were still sleeping soundly, or the local people who were attending the market continued to rise and wait for two in the afternoon of the day, or the clerk was sitting restlessly trying to confirm that I had eaten enough at eleven in the evening, I would not touch anything except the bowl rice. If I could only eat one food in the only region when I went to Japan, then my choice would be to go to Hakodate to eat bowl rice. I'm serious.

If your target is sea urchin, you must go to "Sea urchin House Murakami" (ㆁに Houseむらかみ). The store has been passed down to the fifth generation. They devote themselves to high-end sea urchins from generation to generation, providing many dishes that add ingenuity to sea urchins, such as pickling sea urchins slightly in soy sauce, rolling them into soft yuzu, or combining them with udon noodles, like the oriental version of bacon egg noodles (Carbonara). However, all this is not as dazzling as the most noteworthy dish - the hot rice is filled with twenty-four tongue-shaped sea urchins, plus a little green mustard, which is like opening an orange umbrella with green leaves in the bowl, conquering all other dishes as soon as it appears.

If you want to say where the sea urchin is more famous than Hakodate, it is Otaru . This picturesque harbor town is located on the west coast of Hokkaido, about thirty minutes from Sapporo to take a tram. It is said that the marine fishery resources near Otaru were rich in the past, and people could even catch fish with bare hands. This was once the richest town in Hokkaido. The large amount of herring caught can be processed into fertilizer, so people live a prosperous life with the prosperous herring industry. Today, many "herring mansions" can still be seen on the hills in Otaru, namely the residence and herring treatment centers left by wealthy herring operators in the 19th century. However, these mansions have long been missing for many years.

The spectacular canal runs through the town center, and the sets provided by dozens of sushi restaurants on both sides for day trip tourists are almost the same, about 2,000 yen.But outside the rows of restaurants, if you pass through the arcade shopping street, walk into the narrow alley, and pass through wooden huts, you can see "Sushi House Gaoda" (六し官网) sitting here. It can be said that it completely subverts the crescent sushi culture in most parts of Japan.

Strictly speaking, "tall" is considered a house, that is, a roadside stall. At the same time, it is easy for people to accidentally mistook the store as a wardrobe or a crowded canned sardines. The customer stood in front of the bar and pointed his shoulders against his shoulders, constantly pointing at the glass cabinet. The display cabinet with such colorful seafood items may be the only place in Japan. Such a warm and chaotic scene was written by Takada Sanada, 28. As the owner, he was not only enthusiastic and talkative, but always had a smile on his face, and his personality was also very modest.

"I actually always wanted to be a hair stylist." Mr. Gao laughed while brushing his hands across his head as bright as a billiard ball. "But I then thought, which kind of job would look cooler when I get old? I came to the conclusion that cutting fish should be cooler than cutting hair, so I am here now."

He cut the fish, pinched it into shape, and then handed the sushi to the guests across the glass cabinet, without stopping talking. "I want to create a fun and happy space to provide young people with options other than slalom sushi. The best thing for me is that when the bar is crowded with guests, a high school student came in to order food."

Sushi is the most representative traditional delicacy in Japan.

At this time, three young people who came from Tokyo together opened the glass door and opened the curtain to enter the store.

"We tried to book a place." One of them said, looking at the crowded store.

"No reservations are accepted here." said Mr. Gao Da.

"Okay, we're here anyway."

"Welcome, but you have to wait."

The entire store may be small in space and relaxed in atmosphere, but the sushi served is not sloppy at all. I left everything to Mr. Gao, watching him lead me to see the essence of the rich fishing catch of Hokkaido with his consistent sushi - mackerel marinated in soy sauce for twenty minutes (Mr. Gao said, "Mackerel has to be marinated for three hours in Tokyo, only twenty minutes here"), salmon full of greasy in the cold water to keep warm, scallops melted in my mouth before chewing, and full hairy crab meat piled up on the warm and soft rice. Each dish is endless aftertaste, and no matter which store I go to, I believe that it must be able to achieve such a flavor to be delicious.

The Tokyo trio finally found a seat in front of the bar, and seemed to like this experience very much. One of them said to me, "I really hope there is such a store in Tokyo." When the tall man heard this, his whole face immediately emitted a light of joy like a lighthouse.

We ended up with thick sea urchin, which shaking looks like caramel pudding, and its soft taste is no less than the sweet taste of dessert. Such a shocking finish is one of my best sushi experiences in Japan, not to mention that the price is only one-fifth of that of a well-known restaurant in Tokyo.

"Look at this store. It is because I didn't hire employees and the space is small, so I can withstand the use of the best ingredients."

"Are most of the catches produced in Otaru?" I asked.

"No, not exactly. This sounds complicated."

so I half-swered and half-spoken and wanted Mr. Gao to tell me the complicated part.

"I will take you to find a fisherman tomorrow, and you will understand then."

Compared with the rich era when Otaru was rich in herring, today's fishermen's situation seems much humble. Most of them live in wooden cottage settlements in the north of the city center. Mr. Gao and I met here the next morning, walked to a place that looked like someone's garage, and knocked on the door lightly.

The one who came to the door was a strong man wearing a dark V-neck sweater. "What do you want to do? Don't you know what I'm famous for?"

I tried hard to squeeze out the most appropriate response I thought was right now: "Why are you famous?"

" Because I am a lunatic."

" crazy man? Is it crazy at night? "

" No, I'm a gentleman tonight. I mean at sea, no one is crazier than I am on the sea. I only want to go out today, fishing , and let my son go. "

Mr. Masao looks like a villain who competes with action star Jean-Claude Van Damme in the movie. Not only is he strong and scarred, but he also shows a bit of murderous aura in his handsomeness. There are about 75 fishermen in Otaru, who have been fishing in this sea for generations. Although he has no specific status, he is actually the leader of this group of people. He lives in a messy shed, with two motorboats parked behind the house. Overall, it looks more like a refuge, as if he can take a group of subordinates here to avoid the limelight.

Compared to his slow behavior, Masao smokes very quickly, and he draws from beginning to end. "Sorry, I have nothing to entertain here. "He reached out to the refrigerator and took out an octopus tentacle wrapped in film, about the length of a short-sized man's arms. He tore the film open, cut the tentacle into round and thick pieces like coins with a folding knife, then added a smear of mustard and soy sauce to each of the two plates, and finally arranged these on a stack of old newspapers.

" Breakfast is served. "

You can see a huge refrigerator behind him. I originally thought it should be filled with fish, but when he opened it, he realized that there was nothing but hundreds of cans of BOSS coffee. These small black jars were printed with the boss's pattern smoking a pipe, and the advertisement was made by Tommy Lee Jones (Tommy Lee Jones endorsement.

We sat down, chewing frozen octopus and sipped canned coffee while being surrounded by the clouds of cigarettes. According to Mr. Masao, the most important moment for fishermen is to bring everything they have caught back to their nests. Historically, Otaru fishing has been rich and diverse and has changed with the seasons. Salmons are caught in summer, herrings are caught in autumn, and octopus and sea urchins in spring. But in recent years, they have been lucky to be able to survive by fishing.

"Years have passed, and fewer fish have been caught. When I was young, herring supply actually decreased a lot, but this year we only had one-third of what we did last year. "

Just as we were having a meal, a fisherman living nearby walked in. The short man with long hair and wearing a rubber work suit entered the door and opened the refrigerator and grabbed a can of coffee: "No profit, no profit, no profit. Today's fish is enough for a dinner, that's all. "

" This summer is hotter than before, which seriously affects the supply of fishing catches," said Mr. Masao. "There are not enough beneficial bacteria and microorganisms in the sea, and there are fewer kembs, so there are fewer places for fish to lay eggs. The entire balance has been disrupted. "

Japanese food culture has many things worthy of admiration, but it does not include resource management. Everyone in the world knows that Japanese are heavy consumers of seafood. Whether adults, women or children, each person consumes an average of 55 kilograms of fishing every year, three times the global average. It was the time of World War II, and there was a lack of protein sources. Therefore, the national policy at that time was to encourage a large number of fish to catch, but it also caused the dilemma of fishermen who have no fish to catch.

Environmentalists shouted loudly about this, hoping to find a balance between the survival of species and Japan's fishing habits, but for a long time, it has not been taken seriously by public opinion, and even consumers have turned a deaf ear to it. In other words, whaling and tuna The core of complex problems such as overfishing and the destructive fishing method of not letting go of any fish that misses the net has a very simple reason to make reformers unable to take action: everything is tradition. Indeed, Japan has relied heavily on marine resources for thousands of years to feed the country, but the growing population, the rise of convenience stores and swivel sushi, and the expanding eating habits have put resources at the limit.

The above topics are very wide and are considered a cultural minefield for foreigners to avoid. But I can't help thinking that if Japan's protection of ecosystems can be as careful as their protection of traditional culture, the future of fishery in this country would not be so severe.Mr. Masao seems to be in a dilemma. On the one hand, he respects tradition, and on the other hand, he has to rely on fishing to support his family. However, he knew very well that it was necessary to try to adapt to these limitations today.

Hokkaido's seafood is still the number one in Japan, but overfishing makes the prospects worrying.

Another fisherman came in and unexpectedly threw two live shrimps on the table: "Boss, the young man caught these today." Mr. Masao then lit another cigarette.

"We have been fishing too much, and we should have made changes earlier. The older generation will catch as much as they want, especially those who have no successors, and now we are paying the price for the consequences."

As a father, Mr. Masao, said as he said, his youngest son entered the house empty-handedly: "I originally caught one, but I escaped." He also grabbed a can of coffee and lit a cigarette.

At this time, a strong man with deep red hair and a sexual beard appeared from the back door, which was Mr. Masao's eldest son. He opened the plastic bag in front of us and shook it, and an orange octopus with a tentacle about two feet long fell onto the concrete floor, twisting and moving.

"If I go home empty-handed, I can't imagine what my dad will do to me." He kicked the octopus hard, then raised his head and noticed me for the first time: "Who brought this foreigner?" Everyone burst into laughter when they heard this.

Not long after, everyone in the room started smoking and eating octopus while drinking black canned coffee.

"Is there a fisherman in the United States?" asked the eldest son.

"Yes," the reply was the youngest son, "American fishermen all look cool."

Then the topic turned to King Crab, and I mentioned to them that my brother used to work on a crab boat in Alaska and made a lot of money because of it. After listening to it, the fishermen present suddenly all prepared to transfer their positions to Alaska.

"If everyone wants to go, then I want to go too." said the youngest son.

"Each of you should buy insurance." Mr. Masao lit another cigarette and said, "I will stay here, just wait for you to be responsible for receiving insurance when something happens."