Misplaced Pages

Maguro bōchō

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Bueller 007 (talk | contribs) at 16:34, 4 March 2010 (moved Oroshi hocho to Oroshi hōchō: proper macrons... them's the rules). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 16:34, 4 March 2010 by Bueller 007 (talk | contribs) (moved Oroshi hocho to Oroshi hōchō: proper macrons... them's the rules)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Maguro bōchō" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (Learn how and when to remove this message)
Using a oroshi hocho knife to fillet tuna at the Tsukiji fish market. The knife curves along the line of the spine
Japanese knives, including a long oroshi hocho, used to filet tuna at the Tsukiji fish market
An oroshi hocho in use at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo
Hancho hocho, a half length blade at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo

Oroshi hōchō (おろし包丁, lit. "wholesale knife") and hanchō hōchō (半丁包丁, lit. "half-tool knife") are extremely long, highly specialized knives used in Japan to fillet tuna and other large fish.

The oroshi hocho is a longer knife with a blade length of 150 cm (60 inches) in addition to a 30 cm (12 inch) handle. It can fillet a tuna in a single cut, although usually two to three people are needed to handle the knife and the tuna. The flexible blade is curved to the shape of the spine to minimize the amount of meat remaining on the tuna chassis. The hancho hocho is the shorter blade with a length of around 100 cm (39 inches) in addition to the handle. The hancho hocho is also sometimes called a maguro-kiri (マグロ切, lit. "tuna-cutter").

They are commonly found at wholesale fish markets in Japan, the largest of which is the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. They may be found at very large restaurants, but they are not used in a regular Japanese kitchen, unless there is a frequent need to fillet tuna with a weight of 200 kg (440 pounds) or more.

To those unfamiliar with Japanese knives they may be confused with Japanese swords. However, they are not a weapon but a tool, although they have been used as weapons by Yakuza.

See also: Japanese cutlery

Notes

  1. Bestor, Theodore C. Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World. University of California Press, 2004, p. 26.
Categories: