When I asked what people may want to hear about from Japan, The ever entertaining Tony of Tales From the Rock suggested:
How about some pics or tales of normal farm animals, they must have some:) Japanese cows, goats, sheep etc
Hmm, tough one that. We’re still trying to find a camera which we can persuade to display the functions in English for one thing. For another, I haven’t found many working livestock farms yet, and those I have found are a long way away and won’t let us visit. There used to be a small butchers locally which slaughtered chickens in the shop window, but that seems to have gone, and goodness knows where they got their supplies from. Most milk cattle aare reared on the northernmost island of Hokkaido. In theory we’re where the cows for the famous Matsusaka beef are reared, massaged and listen to classical music before being turned into slabs of very expensive meat. (the photo in the previous link shows 100g selling for about fifty euro or fourty pounds) but I haven’t seen any of them: probably they’re all stall-fed.
Mind you, they may have just been slaughtered because the feed came from the Fukushima region. Apparently, all the meat on sale locally is from frozen stockpiles.
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August 29, 2011 at 8:55 pm
Tony
Thats insane, not the amount of money spent on a steak, but classical music, everyone knows cows prefer progressive rock! Given the cost of this beef and the Japanese willingness to pay it, I should have got you to set up an import agency while you were there as I believe they also love Berkshire pork almost as much (black pigs), my premium organic long range(if they get out) porkers, your business accumen and connections, what could possibly go wrong
August 31, 2011 at 7:08 am
Andy in Germany
I think they only play classics when the cows are ill, Tony. Other than that it’s up to the individual bovine.
Another business opportunity lost. Business acumen was never my strong point.
Come to think of it, Japan is a bit paranoid about ‘furrin’ anything, especially meat. Unless you can prove it’s been made in a very clean indusrial farm I dount they’d let you import it here.