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Fermentation Atlas

Fish and seafood from Japan

Funazushi鮒寿司

sliced fish with orange roe; final product 2-5% NaCl and about 1% lactic acid. Made in 4 steps over 8 months – 5 years. The longest step, rice-pack (honzuke / iizuke), takes 6 months – 3 years (MAFF Japan). Salt is 15 % (MAFF Japan). Weissella confusa, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, Levilactobacillus brevis and Lacticaseibacillus paracasei early and Companilactobacillus musae in week 2 do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step6 months – 3 yearsReported[s1][s1b]Rice-pack (honzuke / iizuke)
Salt15 %Reported[s1]Salt-pack (shiozuke)
AciditypH 4TypicalRice-pack (honzuke / iizuke)
DocumentedFish and seafood8 months – 5 yearsMore fish and seafoodMore from Japan

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedWhat goes in. No source gives amounts for this ferment.
nigorobuna crucian carp (Carassius auratus grandoculis)
females with roe; salt; cooked rice
Starter: spontaneous (no starter added)

Total time across the recorded steps: 8 months – 5 years

Start
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What changes: Starting material: female crucian carp, gutted through the gills with the roe left in

Step 1 of 4
Prepare fish
Time
spring catch
Unconfirmed
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

Variants

  • NamanareMuromachi-era short ferment; rice eaten with the fish.
  • Long pickling with rice change (Honke Sakamotoya)Rice replaced partway through; fermentation extended another year.
  • Other narezushi (kabura-zushi, saba narezushi, ayu-zushi)Other fish; see fish researcher.

More from the research

see also: fish researcher

Safety

Low pH and salt over a long ferment. Shiga Prefecture says harmful bacteria are suppressed within about 6 months of rice fermentation.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Chinese texts describe salted fish packed in rice by about the 4th century. The characters 鮨 and 鮓 appear in Japan's Yōrō Code (718). Origin likely in the Mekong and Irrawaddy rice-fish cultures. Kitashina, one of the oldest makers, was founded in 1619. Nigorobuna stocks fell after the 1980s, so funazushi is now expensive.

  1. [s1] MAFF Japan, suisan hakkō pagegov
  2. [s2] Lentilactobacillus buchneri in funazushi, 2022, PMC9632191, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9632191paper
  3. [s3] MLIT multilingual tourism database, funazushi, https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/en/R2-01390.htmlgov
  4. [s4] Wikipedia, Narezushi, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narezushiwiki
  5. [s1b] Shiga Prefecture document on funazushi. https://www.pref.shiga.lg.jp/file/attachment/5125732.pdfweb
  6. [s2b] Atlas Obscura, Funazushi. https://atlasobscura.com/foods/funazushi-fermented-fish-sushiweb
  7. [s3b] Kitashina-rouho (GLTJP). https://www.gltjp.com/en/directory/item/16782/web