ST030 Sweet shrimp

Snow Treasure

Painting size: 16cm x 23cm

Framing size: 27.5cm x 34.5cm

The Hokuriku region is a treasure trove of seafood.

I thought I'd try drawing the fish that make their home in the Sea of Japan.

Since I make sushi, I see that sight almost every day.

Fishermen, fish market workers, chefs, and others who work with fish have a certain kind of underlying emotion towards them.

I have gratitude and respect for the fish that we take to make a living.

I think it's the same for people who put their hands together and say "Itadakimasu!" (thank you for the meal) before eating the fish.

So I decided to depict not the fish after they've come ashore, but the fish at their most brilliant moment in the ocean. I tried to capture their very life.

Sweet shrimp are a representative seafood of Ishikawa Prefecture, and their name is known throughout Japan. They are adorned with a vibrant crimson coating and carry emerald-blue eggs.

I think the laws of nature are amazing.

Sweet shrimp can live for over 11 years, are born male, and change into females around the age of 5.

Does this mean that males survive in the sea and, upon reaching maturity, become goddesses of the sea?

Its sticky, bouncy texture and abundant sweetness have been renowned since the Edo period.

When Princess Tamahime married and moved from Edo to Kaga at the tender age of three, hundreds of people from the shogunate accompanied her as attendants, and it is said that the first thing they were served upon their arrival in Kaga was this sweet shrimp.

Everyone was surprised by how delicious it was, and Princess Tamahime and others must have thought, "Kaga is a wonderful place!"