Kikkawa — Murakami's thousand-year salmon

photo by 皓月旗 · CC BY-SA 4.0

In the 130-year-old house, about a thousand salted salmon hang from the beams for weeks.

In this shop-house in Murakami, built 130 years ago and now a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, about a thousand salted salmon hang from the ceiling beams in winter: the method, arazu-kake, rubs them with coarse salt, leaves them to rest for 3–5 days and then dries them for 3–4 weeks in the cold north-westerly wind, which makes them ferment and concentrates their flavour. Murakami has fished for salmon on the Miomote River for centuries, hence the company's name, ‘thousand-year salmon’.

千年鮭きっかわ sells, and shows visitors, the traditional processing of salted salmon in Murakami, a city that has fished for salmon on the Miomote River for centuries. The shop-house where it is based, a traditional building registered as a Tangible Cultural Property, is 130 years old; every winter its beams fill with about a thousand salmon hung up to dry, a sight that has become an emblem of the city.

ℹ️ Address: 新潟県村上市大町1-20. Open 9:00–18:00 all year, closed only on 1 January. Free admission; guided tours for groups of 1 to 100 people, booking required.

🚉 Murakami · 20 min walk

Sources: niigata-kankou.or.jp

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