Yonezawa koi, a specialty dish of the city of Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture, is on the verge of vanishing due to recent rises in fish feed prices and a business slump.
To avoid losing the traditional cuisine, Toshinori Iwakura, the 44-year-old owner of the last koi-raising and processing firm in the city, is trying to revive the food culture with the support of a chef from a popular local Italian restaurant.
The culture of eating koi, or carp, in the city started about 200 years ago, when Uesugi Yozan, the feudal lord of the Yonezawa domain, brought in koi fry from the neighboring Soma district in what is now Fukushima Prefecture as a precious source of protein.