Yet another Hacker News

32 points bookofjoe 2 days ago 7 comments

ggm 1 hour ago | parent

In the old Tsukiji market you walked past wooden boxes of the flakes wafting gently in the breeze and saw people milling them with green enamelled powered industrial bench planes, while cooking gas powered market trolleys trundled around, with curious drum like round control panels shifting frozen tuna sides and boxes of abalone. I've never seen those motorised carts anywhere else.

the stuff we buy in packets here in oz must suffer in transit and packaging, they are shattered fragments but they still waft gently in the steam of a bowl of salmon and rice.

The bonito shavings reminded me of the litter around a wood turners lathe. Waste there, but here the point of the exercise.

I think I've had them served as a garnish on Oden. They dance.

halflife 1 hour ago | parent

I was at a fish ramen place in Tokyo, they had a bonito block with a hand operated shaver, looked like a giant pencil sharpener.

Next to the ramen they would serve the bonito flakes contained in a small net, And suggest to soak for 10 seconds, but no more than 30 because the flavor would be too intense.

adrianN 58 minutes ago | parent

This is a very good video on the topic that shows the whole process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzULuj0wU4k (the whole series of videos is good)

spike021 26 minutes ago | parent

I'm actually very curious about the process.

I'm allergic to fish (can't eat tuna, salmon, etc.) but I can eat food made with pretty much any type of bonito-based dashi I've ever tried.

Especially Japanese food like nabe, nikujaga, Aomori-style thick niboshi soup base ramen.

Never really understood it.

bell-cot 10 minutes ago | parent

> I'm allergic to fish...

I'd guess that your allergy is to some class of proteins in the fish - and that the production steps for dried bonito (and maybe the time required) denature or destroy those proteins.

rprwhite 5 minutes ago | parent

By the sound of it, you have a protein allergy. That is, you are allergic to a specific, or set of specific, proteins. When the proteins are denatured, you seem to not be allergic. This can happen at high temperature, low pH, or sometimes through oxidation. There’s a substantial amount of research on this if you want to look it up. But, for it to be particularly constructive, first you would need to determine to which protein you are allergic

akshayrajeshwar 20 minutes ago | parent

Crazy how fish can look like a gem.