ALLEN MEMORIAL ART MUSEUM 19 UtagawaHiroshige I 初代目歌川広重 (Japanese, 1797–1858) TosaProvince: BonitoFishingat Sea, no. 58 fromthe series Pictures of Famous Places in the Sixty-oddProvinces, 1855 Color woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper MaryA. AinsworthBequest, 1950.1313 Particularly prized for its flavor, bonito, or skipjack tuna, known in Japan as katsuo 鰹, is a major part of Japanese cuisine. A fish primarily eaten raw in sashimi or sushi, it is also used to make a popular fish stock called dashi 出汁. Bonito is also smoked, fermented, dried, and then shaved into flakes to make the widely-used condiment and seasoning called katsuobushi 鰹節. The first bonito of the season, known as hatsu katsuo 初鰹, was considered the most delicious and was a symbol of spring, or the first month of the lunar year. The south-tonorth springtime migration of the fish meant that southern ports, like those in Tosa Province, got the first bonito of the year. Note that, unlike the fishermen who use nets in the nearby print, these men use fishing rods and lines. This was believed to limit the potential damage to these valuable fish.
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