Crazy how a fish can look like gem.

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.

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

  today at 7:31 AM

  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.

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)