NEW BEGINNING, NEW INSPIRATION
The Story of Cod Soup of Doctor Sashimi, Cho Young-Je | |||
WRITER | Department of External Cooperation | WRITE DAY | 2014-01-29 |
COUNT | 1289 |
The Story of Cod Soup of Doctor Sashimi, Cho Young-Je | |||||
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Department of External Cooperation | ![]() |
2014-01-29 | ![]() |
1289 |
The Story of Cod Soup of Doctor Sashimi, Cho Young-Je The professor of Food Science and Technology, Cho Young-Je who is known as doctor sashimi, chose cod soup as the best food in the winter. Why the soup is chosen as the best even though it is a common hangover soup? I was finding a top topic for 「Pukyong e-Day」online magazine, so I decided to introduce cod soup story to all the readers of the magazine with help of the professor. Let’s get into a story of cod. Is female cod more expensive than male one, or reverse way? Male cod is actually more expensive than female one as twice because of its roe. The roe comes out from both sex of cod, but they are different as female one is for their baby. The reason why male one is more expensive is the roe from male is the main ingredient of cod soup’s taste. That part makes the special taste of the soup. The owner of Light House sushi house in Yongwon-dong, Jinhae-gu, Changwon-si, Oh Se-Young, said the cost of female cod around 50cm is thirty-thousand won while male one with same size is sixty-thousand won.
In the old days, female one was more expensive than male one because of salted cod roe. However, as the cod soup had been getting famous, the price changed in reverse way. The roe look like white walnut is actually male’s testis. Professor Cho said that people get confused between roe of female and of male even though it is totally different part. Then what is the most careful part of cod sellers? The owner of restaurant is student of the professor. The professor Cho opened the ’sashimi expert course’ in Pukyong Lifelong Education Center for public as the first in Korea in 2000. The purpose of it is making the sashimi cooked in more clean and scientific way for improving sashimi food culture. The program is being run by Fishery Processing Research Center in Yongdang campus of Pukyong National University. Mr. Oh finished the course in 2004. He learned everything about sashimi from the course and opened Light House sushi house which is famous restaurant with full of customers now. He said that the male cod’s roe is excellent enough for making taste of the soup, so any synthetic flavoring matters are not needed at all, and even anchovy stock. Because of this use, the most important thing of cod sellers is handling cod without cutting male cod open to keep the roe. He also mentioned that if the female cod spawn first in water tank, male one tried to ejaculate its sperm on the roe, so that can cause suffocation of all the cods in the tank because the sperm can stick to cods’ gills and disturb its breathing. To prevent that accident happens, they try to keep water temperature of the tank around 1 degree. If it is higher than 1 degree, cod will try to spawn, and the cod spawned would be sold after dried. Then, is the male roe is more nutritious than female one? The professor said that the female one is actually more nutritious than male one even the male one is treated better. He also mentioned that there are more nutrition in the female’s roe than testis such as 1.5 times of protein, 5.8 times of fat, and 4.4 times of vitamin E, and it has other nutrition such as vitamin B1, B2, and B12, niacin, and folic acid. The home of cods is around Jinhae bay. There are full of tourists around Busan Gadeokdo, Gyeongsangnam-do Geoje-si Oepo-ri, and Jinhae Yongwon to taste cod soup because the cod season is from December to February and nothing left when the season is over. Cod is cold-water fish like pollack, but they come down till around south ocean for spawning. Cod is the main fish type of Korea what is living around 45~450 depth of water and 5~12 degree of temperature in groups and coming down around our ocean in the winter for spawning. Artificial hatching and plantation project with its instinct returning to where they were born Cods have the instinct returning to where they were born like salmon. The cods hatched around Jinhae bay raise in East sea for 2~3 years and goes up to Bering Sea of North Pacific, and then, they come back to Jinhae bay. After 3 years from hatch, the cods reach around 60cm length of their body. The professor said that cod can grow up to 20~27cm in an year, 30~48 cm in two years, and 80~100cm in five years, so the length of cod is proof of its age. Using the returning instinct is the artificial hatching and plantation project. The number of cod in Korea had been reduced in 1980 because of indiscriminate poaching of fishers and ecosystem change caused by completion of Nakdong river barrier. Only from hundreds to thousands of cod got caught from 1990’s to early 2000’s. Because of small amount of catch, the price of cod around 60~70 cm used to be 500,000 won. In 1986, National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives of Geoje, Gyeongnam-do, and Geoje-si started the project as the first. The fertilized egg release effect started to show up from 2001 as more cod were getting caught. That was the power of fisheries science. As the way has been proved that it has more survival rate, researchers catch the cod and collect spawn from it, and release it to the sea after artificial incubating and growing up to 7cm. Can cods be eaten as sashimi? The name of cod in Korean is ’big mouth’. As cods have a good appetite, they eat many things including fishes and shellfishes. They move around the bottom lever in day, and middle level in night. "There is nothing to throw away from cods as each parts have own use. Flesh can be used for soup, spawn for steamed dish or salted spawn, gill and guts for salted fish, and testis for salted fish or an ingredient of soup made with dried radish greens," professor Cho said. Then, can we eat cod as sashimi? The professor said yes. Cod is known as the one not good for sashimi because of its watery and soft flesh, lack of flavor and fat, and high price. However, professor Cho said that cod’s flank meat is good for sashimi as it has suitable fat and chewy flesh in winter time. The professor also said about the story of cod that cod was used as the best combat ration of Viking with preservation skill with salting or drying. England and Iceland had wars three times for catching cods. Professor mentioned that Portuguese invented salting cod with the skill from making mummy, and that brought high price rise. Portugal is the largest salting cod consumer in the world. "The soup is expensive as it is 20000 won just for one, but it is still fine that it was more rare before the project had been done. To keep marine resources safe, cod under 30cm should be protected," the professor said. The cod soup made by Mr. Oh just served now. I think I know too much about cod now. I could feel like I get dynamic of cod’s life to spawn from far, and that makes me powerful in a special way. Who is Cho Young-Je? He is a professor of Food Science and Technology of Pukyong National University. He wrote 50 thesis and 10 books about sashimi for 30 years. He also got 5 patents about it. He started culture lecture about sashimi as the first in Korea, and major class ’the study of sashimi’. As he is the president of Korean Sashimi Association, he leads improvement of food culture of sashimi, and he runs ’Doctor Sashimi’ which is venture what sells Aekjeot (watered salted fish). |