All you eco-loons out there should find this of interest:
Iceland and Norway resumed whale meat exports to Japan this year after an 18-year interruption, industry representatives from both Scandinavian countries said. “Iceland and Norway resumed exporting whale meat to Japan,” said Gunnar Bergmann Jonsson, president of the Icelandic association representing Minke whale hunters.
“We have exported to Japan 80 tons of fine whale’s meat about two weeks ago. The meat is now in Japan. We got the authorization from the government in 2006. And the last exports before those were in 1990,” said Jonsson.
Despite Japan being the largest market for whale meat, Norwegian whalers prior to now met with no uptake from Japanese buyers who worried mercury and dioxin levels were abnormally high in the Scandinavian product.
“Norway announced in 2001 that it would resume its exports. Up to now, our sales were limited to Iceland and the Faroe Islands but, this year, meat has also been exported to Japan,” said Halvard Johansen, an official with Norway’s fishing ministry. [Japan Today]
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10:15 am on June 7th, 2008 1
I was fortunate enough to have had whale meat in Japan in 1968. While most Americans would think of blubber or the fat surounding the whale, it is the meat that is most prized. It looks like,(important) and tastes like, the most delicious tender roast beef you have ever had. (No, it doesn’t taste like chicken). It melts in your mouth with a nice beefy texture reminisant of a well cooked pot roast. Its really too bad we can’t get the Vietnamese to artificially grow them in local ponds the way they do shrimp.
3:10 pm on June 7th, 2008 2
Aren’t the Japanese afraid of mad whale disease?
5:20 pm on June 7th, 2008 3
The wife said the raw fish restaurant across the street served us cold whale meat as a side dish a couple months ago. As Gerry says, it did indeed taste like pot roast - very tasty.