Japanese Slang (41 page)

Every inch of fish has its
besshari
name. The large blocks of tuna laid out ready for sale are called
dote
(mud embankment!)), and the anxious retailers and chefs count these fish blocks in
ch
: itch
(one block),
nich
(two blocks),
sanch
(three blocks).

•   
Ana gotatsuke no itch
! Yoroshiku, na!
One block of troublemaker! Please take care of me!
(Gimme a chunk from that humongous tuna over there! A nice chunk, OK?)

•   
Kono nich
ikura kai?
How much d'ya want for both chunks?

•   
Sanch
to waribiki suru yo!
Take all three blocks and I'll give ‘em to you cheap!

Haranimai
(two sheets of belly) is the highly prized stomach, which is served up caked in salt as an exotic
delicacy from the northern province of Iwate. The head of the fish is called
kama,
the top section including the gills
kami,
and the bottom part is
shimo. Engawa
(porch) is a fin.

The uninitiated shopper at the market might be quite surprised to hear a sushi chef say, “What a beautiful porch! I'll take it, and wrap up those embankments over there for me too.”

As the market words narrow down to the more specific parts of a fish they cross into sushi bar territory, where they are used by customers with delicate palates to order raw slices from particular areas of a fish.
toro
(big fatty-tuna) is the expensive meat carved out of the frontal underbelly,
ch
toro
(medium fatty-tuna) are slices of underbelly from further down,
nakaochi
(inside dividend) is the meat around the backbone, and
akami
(red taste) is the cheap reddish meat from the lean area near the tail.

Discriminating sushi bar clients will pay $100 and more for a portion of sushi with a strip of the best Tsukiji tuna. As a result, tensions mount when one rival chef manages to snap up a chunk of fish that another had been eyeing. A sushi chef is only as good as the tuna he manages to get hold of, so when he loses out the word used is
naku
(crying), the same expression that vendors use when they are outsmarted at the early morning auction. As a foiled chef might complain:

•   
Kesa sandai me naita!
It's the third time I'm crying this morning!
(It's the third piece of fish that was snatched from under my nose!)

•   
D
shite sonna ni nakisaseta!
I can't believe you're making me cry like this!
(How could you have let him get that piece I wanted?)

When tempers flare and irate chefs fly at each other's throats, the market
besshari
word is
deiri
(entrance and exit).

The earliest customers at the fish stall are also the toughest. Sushi chefs and local Tokyo retailers pride themselves on their
irime
(false eye), their uncanny ability to judge the weight of a fish to a gram. As a result, many buyers and vendors who have longstanding relationships avoid using scales so as not to offend the others' sensibilities. Vendors who are particularly fond of a customer will even go as far as playing
kakedashi
(novice); the vendor packs a chunk of fish, ostentatiously misjudging its weight as only a beginner would, letting the favored buyer get away with a few extra grams. On slow days during tea breaks some fish stalls even do a bit of illegal
chikamedori
(close-up eye take), in which a small friendly market group dumps yen notes onto the stall counter, gambling on the exact weight of a fish. The trick is to assess how much water might have seeped into it while it was floating in the
danbe
among the ice cubes.

After the best of the catch has been sold within the first minutes, the vendors prepare themselves to face the rush of local fishmongers, lesser chefs, and tough Tokyo matrons who have large families to feed. These customers are classified as
jinkyaku
(the inversion of
kyakujin,
“patron”). If there is a lull after the first wave
of customers, the wary vendor defines the situation as:

•   
E ni kaita jishin.
Confidence painted in a picture.

The implication is that he is putting on a brave face even though his confidence is somewhat diaphanous. If the lull is unnervingly long the situation becomes
b
zu
(priest), the apprehensive pun being that the customers are as few as the hairs on a priest's carefully shaven head. The worried vendor might call out to a neighboring stall: