Page 74 - KATE_JOHNSTON_2017

San Pietro also expanded its global reach. After a period of closure from the 1970s, due to

32
pollution from a nearby factory, the tonnara reopened in the mid-1990s, prompted by

Japanese buyers interested in tuna from the trap. Global tastes for tuna had changed during

the closure. An increase in Western appetites for sushi had been growing since the early

1970s (Bestor 2000). This coincided with the transformation of the Japanese fishing

industry’s international role (Bestor 2000). In the 1980s, the Japanese government began to

restructure its fleets in response to restricted access to overseas fishing grounds, which the

declaration of Excusive Economic Zones (EEZ) enforced (Barclay & Koh 2008, p. 146). At

this time, Japan turned to foreign suppliers (Bestor 2000, p. 57). Kate Barclay and Sun-Hui

Koh describe how quantity was no longer a national food security issue as it had been in post

war Japan, and ‘consumers started to demand high-quality high-value products’ (2008, p.

145).

After the tonnara reopened the majority of the tuna went to Japan. The way mattanza

was practiced underwent changes, and particular notions of quality emerged. This was also

the beginning of new relationships and a widening of the tonnara network to include

international stakeholders. Giuliano refers to the period as the ‘Japanese Age’, which is a

temporal framing that restaurant and fish shop owners also express when they talk about a

time when Japanese began to come to the island and have the first pick of the tuna. Giuliano

recalls how Japanese technicians introduced new techniques, knowledge and tastes.

There was still blood [when we harvested tuna] but there was not the system of
opening tuna [on the boat], in total, like before. Now the tuna is opened on the
land. The only operation we do on the boat is blooding and chilling. (G Greco
2013, pers. comm. 31 May)

Here Giuliano references the Japanese technique of ikejime. Over several years Japanese

technicians taught Giuliano and some of the crew about killing the tuna faster and bleeding it

to maintain colour and freshness. New notions of quality and taste for raw or lightly cooked

62