Japan Navigator

A particular fish called hamo is so popular in summer in Kyoto, that the Gion Festival (held tomorrow, July 17) is even called “Hamo Matsuri.”

Hamo is Daggertooth Pike-Conger, a white-meat fish from the eel family. As its English name reveals, it has a deep ripped mouth with sharp teeth at the upper and lower parts of the jaw. The name hamo comes from hamu, an old term for eating, because the fish uses its sharp teeth to eat almost anything from shrimps and crabs to small fish.

Hamo is caught in the warm waters of the Japanese Inland Sea, where it lives at the soft bottom or in estuaries. It can grow to two meters, but in practice, only fish up to one meter are used in restaurants. It is caught between May and October and is at its best in July. Large quantities of the fish are consumed around this time. Like eel, hamo contains much fat and is believed to have invigorating qualities. It indeed helps you get back some appetite under the hot and humid summer sky that in July hangs like a lead blanket over Kyoto.

[Tempura of hamo with shiso or perilla leaves. Photo Ad Blankestijn]

Hamo also has a mild and light flavor – in fact, it tastes quite refined. Despite that, except in Kyoto (and Osaka, where it is eaten around the time of the Tenjin Festival, also in July), hamo is not a popular fish in the rest of Japan. The reason is that it has extremely hard and fine bones to the incredible number of 3,500 in all, making it in the first place an impossible item for home cooking. You need a specialist to bone it, using a special hamokiri-bocho knife.

Besides its restorative qualities, which can after all also be enjoyed by eating ordinary eel, there is a special reason why hamo is so popular in Kyoto. That is because the hardy pike conger is able to survive for longer periods compared to other fish after it has been caught. Kyoto is a land-locked city and in the past fresh sea fish could not be brought there. But hamo formed an exception and therefore was warmly welcomed in Kyoto, despite the difficulty of preparing it. And perhaps that challenge was a not a disadvantage at all, as it gave Kyoto’s proud chefs a chance to show off their skills! To remove the tiny bones, hamo has to be sliced very thinly without cutting the flesh in half.

Hamo is enjoyed in the following forms:

• As hama-otoshi, boiled pike conger: the eel is cut into bite-sized pieces and served on top of ice in glass dishes or wooden tubs
• As kabayaki, grilled on top of charcoal and then glazed with a sweet soy sauce
• Hamozushi, as topping on sushi. In this case either fresh hamo or kabayaki is used
• As tempura, sometimes wrapped in a shiso leaf
• In vinegared dishes (sunomono)
• In clear soup (osumashi, suimono)

In summer, hamo is served in upscale ryotei in Kyoto. But you can also taste it in a more economical way: around this time department stores and supermarkets will sell delicious hamozushi, and in the sozai section, you can find hamo tempura!

This post contains material from an earlier post about names of sea fish.


Also see this post in KyotoFoodie.