Negitoro facts for kids
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Negitoro (Japanese: ネギトロ) is a Japanese cuisine of minced raw tuna scrape, aka fatty parts of the fish that cannot be made into other meals, and are commonly served together with green onion. In addition to being an ingredient to sushi of various types, they are also being used as topping of rice bowl forming Negitorodon.
Contents
Etymology
Multiple hypothesis exists.
Combination of green onion and toro part of tuna
A hypothesis states that Negitoro is so named because it is a combination of green onion (Japanese: ネギ, romanized: Negi), and toro (Japanese: トロ, romanized: toro, fatty parts of tuna).Since 1980s with the appearance of new sushi of toro combining with pungent vegetables, the well matched taste and combination of toro and green onion and nori seaweed have earned further popularity.
Toro referring to something other than part of tuna
One of the restaurant hypothesized as the origin of the dish, claim the dish was so named based on mugitoro, a dish that was popular around the place at the time.
Negi referring to something other than green onion.
In the field of construction in Japan, digging soil from the ground to constructing building is termed Negiru (Japanese: 根切る), and it was hypothesized that the term adopted into Negiru (Japanese: ねぎる) or Negitoru (Japanese: ねぎ取る) to refer to meat being scraped. Tuna fishing groups support the hypothesis. However, dictionary editor question the hypothesis claiming there are no verifiiable usage of the verb form of the adopted word Negitoru (Japanese: ねぎ取る), thus believe the hypothesis cannot be sustained. It have been suggested the Negitoru-origin hypothesis emerged after 2000s, and until 1990s the mainstream hypothesis on the origin of the Negitoro dish was that the term is combination of green onion (Japanese: ネギ, romanized: Negi), and toro (Japanese: トロ, romanized: toro).
Mass market product
Negitoro being sold to mass market and distributed into retail channels like supermarket are mass produced from fish factories. They use lean meat of various fishes, including for example yellowfin tuna, marklin, bigeye tuna, albacore and so on, then adding additives like vegetable oil, shortening, lard, antioxidants, and condiments. Dedicated fat products for the purpose of negitoro manufacturing have also been produced.
Japanese consumer groups and magazines have raised concern on such practice being possibly misleading and have potential health concern. However there are also claims that unprocessed tuna scrape are not popular.
