休日なので昨日もお気に入りの北海道余市の魚店「新岡商店」で買い出し。先日購入してきた「タコとんび」を食べ尽くしてしまっていたので、またあるかなぁと訪問してみた次第。無事にあったので、即購入。地元の漁師さんたちの「その日獲れた魚類」を買い付けるお店なので、行ってみなければなにがあるかわからない。よく買いに行く札幌中央市場の鮮魚店舗群などでは全道各地の漁師さんたちの漁獲が集中するので、魚種についてもユーザーが好きに選べるのだけれど、こういう地元密着店ではそうはいかない。でも、そういうのが出会いの楽しみ、その土地・海の「めぐみ」だとも言える。
ということなのですが、昨日目を奪われていたのが、こちらの「かすべ」であります。かすべというのは地元の方言名で、エイのこと。〜「カスベ」とは、北海道の方言で「エイ」のこと。ガンギエイ科の魚の通称であり、コモンカスベやメガネカスベなどがこれに含まれます。その名の由来は諸説ありますが、カスベは鮮度が落ちるとアンモニア臭を放つため「煮ても焼いても食べられない、カス（かすっぺ）にしかならない魚」という意味で付けられたと言われています。〜うーむ、いかにも北海道っぽい（笑）。
どうも加齢してくると、こういう地元感に「揺りかご」的な郷愁をつよく刺激されてしまう。幼い頃に母がこしらえてくれた食品が脳内でその周辺的な思いとともに気分が復元してくる。たぶん幼い頃にも地元の味と言うことで多量に出荷されていて、庶民的な食材として食卓を賑わしていたのでしょうね。ときどき母と一緒に買い物に行って、店頭で見かけていた記憶が再生される。
ということで購入して帰ってきたけれど、カミさんは「こんな料理、わたしは作らないよ」みたいに無視を決め込んでいる。おお、ありがたい（笑）。もちろんわたしが料理させてもらった。って言っても、料理は単純な煮付けなのでコンブ出汁とショウガを加えるくらいで、あとは単純な味付けのみ。幼年時の住宅はもちろん寒かったので、冬場にはこの煮付けは朝になるとゼラチン部分が「にこごり」に変身していた。それがまた、強く脳裏を刺激する。
現代では冷凍庫に入れるしかないでしょうが、そういうのも楽しみたい。おお、ハラが減ってきた。
English version⬇
[Boiled kasube, the soul food of the people of Hokkaido
A taste of Hokkaido's common people and winter delicacies, commonly known by the discriminatory name ‘kasube’. The shape of the fish and the local flavour are deeply soothing. ...
It's a holiday, so yesterday I went shopping again at my favourite fish shop, Nioka Shoten, in Yoichi, Hokkaido. I had eaten all the ‘octopus tonbi’ I had bought the other day, so I visited to see if they had any more. It was safely there, so I bought it immediately. Because it is a shop where local fishermen buy ‘fish caught that day’, if you don't go there, you don't know what's there. At the Sapporo Central Market, where I often go to buy fresh fish, the fish caught by fishermen from all over the province are concentrated, so users can choose the type of fish they want, but this is not the case at these locally-based shops. But this is the pleasure of encountering the local people and the ‘blessings’ of the land and sea.
Yesterday, I was drawn to this Kasube, which is a local name for the local people. Kasube is the local dialect name for stingray. 〜Kasube is the Hokkaido dialect name for stingray. It is the common name for fish of the family Acanthuridae, which includes the common kasube and spectacled kasube. There are various theories as to the origin of the name, but it is said to have been given to kasube in the sense that it is a fish that cannot be eaten boiled or grilled, but only turned into dregs (kasube), as it releases an ammonia odour when it is no longer fresh. 〜Mmmm, very Hokkaido-like (laughs).
As I get older, this kind of local feeling stimulates my nostalgia in a ‘cradle’ kind of way. Foods that my mother used to prepare for me when I was a child come back to me in my brain, along with the surrounding thoughts and feelings. I think that even when I was a child, they were shipped in large quantities as a local delicacy and were a common ingredient on the dinner table. Sometimes I go shopping with my mother and memories of seeing them in the shops replay themselves.
So I bought it and came home, but my wife decided to ignore it, as if to say, ‘I don't cook this kind of food’. Oh, thank goodness (laughs). Of course I cooked it. But it was a simple simmered dish, so I only added kombu soup stock and ginger, and the rest was just simple seasoning. The houses in my childhood were of course cold, so in winter this simmered dish had the gelatine part transformed into ‘nikogori’ in the morning. That also strongly stimulated my brain.
Today, you would have to put it in the freezer, but I would enjoy that kind of thing. Oh, I'm getting less harried.
