bonito flake

Japan; katsuobushi (fermented, smoked, dried bonito), one of the hardest foods in the world

Japanese production refined over centuries, essential to dashi, remains primarily Japanese in production and use

Katsuobushi is built in stages. Arabushi, smoked and dried, takes twenty to thirty days. Honkarebushi takes a further three to five months, about half a year in all, during which mould is inoculated in humidity-controlled rooms, left to take hold over ten to fifteen days, then sun-dried off, the cycle repeated four times or more. The makers name the organism: Ninben uses Eurotium herbariorum. The result is dried to something closer to hardwood than to fish and has to be shaved. Industrial shortcuts have largely replaced the full process, concentrating the craft in a shrinking number of houses. The ingredient the world buys cheaply in plastic packets was six months of somebody's attention. Price compression did not make it more available. It made the real one harder to find.