Zhoushan Dried Yellow Croaker

Zhoushan White Dried Fish

　　Zhoushan’s economy is primarily fishing-based, and there is a wide variety of aquatic specialty products, such as dried yellow croaker (commonly known as white dried fish), dried cuttlefish, golden hook shrimp, South Sea seaweed, three-layer preserved mackerel, triple alum jellyfish, and so on. In terms of historical development, white dried fish is the earliest, and in terms of fame, it also ranks the highest. Today, let’s start with the white dried fish.

　　Legend has it that during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, when the Wu and Yue states were vying for supremacy, soldiers stationed on the islands of the Wu kingdom often ate yellow croaker. During the fishing season when fish were abundant, they would slice them into dried fish fillets to keep for the off-season. On one occasion, when soldiers returned to the capital, they brought some dried fish fillets for the King Fuchai to try. After tasting them, Fuchai praised them highly, and thus people combined the characters for “fish” and “delicious” to create the character for “dried fish” (鲞). Even if this legend is true, the dried fish at that time was merely salted fish. The actual processing technique that created the distinctive taste and long shelf life of white dried fish likely emerged after the Tang and Song dynasties. The 《Changguo Prefecture Annals》 from the Yuan Dynasty’s Da De era, under the entry for “Fishing and Salt,” states: “Annual production varies; in the past, there was none. Coastal residents would make dried fish fillets every year and purchase officially licensed salt for the process. The authorities never set up an official facility. Starting from the 30th year of the Zhiyuan era, boat owners were ordered to purchase salt based on the size of their boats from official facilities to cure the dried fish. In the first year of the Da De era, over 800 licenses were issued.” Under the “Tax Revenue” section, it also mentions: “Fish bladder tax, 80 jin annually, started in the 30th year of the Zhiyuan era.” These records indicate that the aquatic product processing industry was already quite developed at the time. However, they still do not prove the exact origin of white dried fish production. The earliest written record that can be found dates back to the Jiaqing era of the Qing Dynasty. At that time, fish merchants from Zhenhai and other areas set up factories on Dasha Cape of Daishan to produce dried fish. They used a “single knife” to manually slice fish and large wooden barrels to cure them... The craftsmanship had reached a high level of refinement. By the eve of the Anti-Japanese War, there were nearly 500 various aquatic product processing plants in the region, including 303 on Daishan and 162 in Dongsha Town alone. In the mid-1970s, I once visited a “fish factory” on Changtu out of curiosity and witnessed the “knife masters” rapidly slicing fish. Then the fish were placed in huge wooden barrels—more like pools, as no household has such large barrels. They were about the size of the barrels used in the circus act where performers walk on walls, though not as deep. After curing, the fish were taken out, rinsed, and sun-dried, eventually becoming the delicious white dried fish. Before liberation, white dried fish was one of the main export commodities of the region. In the 21st year of the Republic of China (1932), the region exported 4,000 tons of various aquatic products, with white dried fish making up a significant proportion. In the 1950s, a small amount of white dried fish was still exported to Southeast Asian countries. From the 1960s onward, with the development of the frozen food industry and the decline in yellow croaker resources, the white dried fish processing industry was effectively phased out.