【Reading】ますのすけ

【English Name】King Salmon (Chinook Salmon)

Masunosuke is a large migratory fish belonging to the salmon family, also widely known as the king salmon (chinook salmon). It inhabits mainly the Alaska-Kamchatka coastal area of the North Pacific, and is also distributed in the Sea of Okhotsk and the northern Sea of Japan. Domestically, returning individuals heading for Russia are sometimes caught in small numbers on the Pacific side of Hokkaido and Tohoku, but there are no rivers in Japan where it consistently spawns.

Among salmonids it is rich in fat, and its flesh is said to have a rich umami. Most of what circulates in Japan is imported from Alaska, Russia, and elsewhere, and is used for a wide range of purposes such as canned goods, salted fillets, smoked products, and sashimi. The roe is also processed into ikura and sujiko. As a sushi topping, it is often treated as a high-grade member of the salmon family because of its fat richness and umami.

A typical caught individual is about 90 cm in body length and about 10 kg in weight, but the largest individual on record reached 1.47 m in length and 57 kg in weight. The "suke (介)" in its Japanese name refers to the vice-governor (an official rank) under the ritsuryo system, and the name is said to derive from likening this species, larger than ordinary salmon and trout, to that official title.