Feast Your Eyes: Shark Fin Fishing in Japan

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This short (just over one minute) video made by The Guardian shows a morning's work at the port of Kesennuma, the home of Japan's shark fishing trade. Warning: The scenes of men hacking the fins off the live sharks and then bulldozing their carcasses out of the way are not for the faint of heart.

GOOD has covered a new British campaign against the shocking shark fin trade before. Legislation to ban the sale and import of shark fins in the state of California is also currently the subject of heated debate. Interestingly, SF Weekly reporter Jonathan Kauffman recently sampled shark's fin soup, as part of an article discussing the cultural importance of the dish in Chinese cuisine, and reported that:

Despite its price, the soup was no culinary masterpiece. The pork-and-chicken broth lacked complexity and depth, if not cornstarch. But the shark's fin was exquisite: Each filament was silky and jellied, but with a delicately chewy texture. As I sipped the soup, the filaments fluttered against every surface of my mouth, impossible to pinpoint, like walking through the mist halo of a sprinkler and trying to identify where each drop lands on your skin.