Sakana

In Japan, it is customary to serve alcoholic drinks with snacks called sakana (肴) or shukō (酒肴).

Etymology

The term sakana traditionally refers to food served with sake, and originates from the words saka (sake) and na (side dish). Another word for "snack" in Japanese is otsumami (お摘み).[lower-alpha 1] Because dried fish and salted fish roe were popular choice for such dishes, over the years the term sakana also came to mean "fish".

Types of sakana

In Japan, when alcohol is consumed, it is customary that the drinks are accompanied with some sort of foodstuff. These are usually quite salty and served in relatively small portions.

However, since the 19th century, the market share for Japanese beer has been expanded in Japan, which in 1959 overtook sake as the nation's most popular alcoholic beverage in taxable shipping volume,[3] and at the same time various foods designed to accompany beer have become popular.

These dishes, served in restaurant-pubs known as izakaya, are usually more substantial than tapas, although they are not considered a meal since they do not contain the all-important Japanese rice. Traditionally, the Japanese regarded sake, which is made from rice, as a substitute for white rice served in a standard Japanese meal, and as a result some Japanese do not eat rice and drink alcohol simultaneously.

Listed below are some common sakana.

Various otsumami sold at a supermarket
Chu-hi can sold with otsumami attached on the top

Notes
  1. The Japanese noun tsumami meaning "something to nibble/eat with a drink", which is beautified by adding an honorific prefix o and becoming otsumami.;[1] this term usually applies to smaller dishes. Before Edo period, fish in general was called uo.[2]
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gollark: `L` - jump backward one instruction.
gollark: Can you post Lyric's Law? It appears to not be on the starboard.
gollark: Looping construct: jump backward one instruction (`L`)Branching construct: pick next instruction or previous instruction (`B`) - next if accumulator > 0, previous if accumulator <= 0.New branching construct: pick next instruction if user types `0` or previous if user types anything else (`N`)Making loop non-infinite: `E`, exits program if accumulator < 0.+1/-1 act on an accumulator initialized at zero (`+`/`-`)A program consists of a sequence of these instructions (first line) and arbitrary data encoded in base64 (second line) which is loaded into linear memory as bytes. These are executed left-to-right until the end is reached; when this occurs the direction of execution will be reversed.Infinite arbitrary data: command (`D`) to set accumulator to value of linear memory at position in accumulator.This language is called "HahaYourLawIsBad".
gollark: Hmm...

References
  1. Martin Collick; David P.Dutcher; Tanabe Munekazu; Kaneko Minoru, eds. (2002). "おつまみ". Kenkyusha's New College Japanese-English Dictionary (5 ed.). ISBN 978-4-7674-2058-5.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  2. Kusano Noboru (2003). 語源辞典: 名詞編 [Etymological Dictionary - Nouns] (in Japanese). Tokyo Shuppan. p. 115.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  3. Regional Project Department. "清酒業界の現状と成長戦略 - 「國酒」の未来" [Status of Sake Breweries and Growth Strategy for the Industry - Future for the "National Beverage"] (PDF). Development Bank of Japan Inc. p. 9. Retrieved 2016-03-08.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

See also
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