I opened a can full of firefly squid. | Canned Fish Files Ep. 197

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]What are we even doing here? Amino Hashidare Firefly Squid from Japan.

[00:00:06]Yeah. Yeah. I've had this can for about a year now. Uncle Masakazu gave it to me when I was over there. And uh Yeah. It's so beautiful. Look at these uh brush strokes here to paint a little squid. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. The firefly squid are from a bay in Japan called Toyama.

[00:00:24]Apparently, they come to that bay to spawn the little squid. They're bioluminescent. It's beautiful. I don't know what these are going to be like.

[00:00:32]They're smoked in cotton seed oil.

[00:00:33]That's about all there is to know about this honestly cuz like looking around here, there's there's just like not a lot of interesting copy, right? I mean, facts. Yeah. But they're doing a great job packaging this stuff because there's not much here. I mean, it's not much waste. I don't know. When you collect the boxes the way I do, they kind of pack up real flat when there's not much of it. Whereas if you got a real stiff, sturdy box, it's more of an encumbrance after hundreds of boxes. Yeah.

[00:01:07]And look at that. The can was protected just fine by this little obi. Yeah. I call it a obi because like on a kimono, the obi is like the little cr bund that goes around the uh the waist, you know?

[00:01:22]And uh I think even like um vinyl record collectors will call like the cardboard thingo that goes around the LP's sleeve that's called an obi. Yeah. Yeah. So like that I kind of borrowed that from um vinyl heads. I think I think reach out if I'm uh getting it all wrong.

[00:01:42]Okay, let's open this up.

[00:01:47]Uh-huh.

[00:01:50]Clean. Open.

[00:01:54]Fantastic pool.

[00:01:56]Oh my god, babies.

[00:02:00]Oh, babies.

[00:02:05]Let me be careful. I don't want to splatter oil.

[00:02:11]Oh man, they smell good, too.

[00:02:16]They smell. It's kind of the generic smoked seafood smell. That's exciting.

[00:02:22]Um, but nothing weird. Oh my god. I thought they would be a little bigger, but they're babies.

[00:02:29]>> They're babies.

[00:02:34]Let's try one kind of naked here. And then um and then I got some mustard, some soy. I mean, I'm just just trying to be prepared here because I don't know. I I I figured the mustard would be appropriate. Maybe the soy sauce would be too much. Maybe they don't need anything. Maybe these guys are just packed full of flavor all on their own.

[00:02:54]Um it doesn't seem like I really need a plate. But let's get one out here just so I can kind of uh create a higher contrast situation for our little firefly squid. Yeah.

[00:03:13]Japanese refer to them as uh oh hotaru ika. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:20]Gosh, I I thought I'd see a little bit more of their big eyeballs or whatever, but I can't quite make out. I mean, you can see that little flappy guy that a squid has. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:36]What do they taste like? Oh, I hate going through this where I'm trying to like place it, you know, the smokiness comes through. I don't know if smoking them is just sort of a reality of um preparing them to be canned or whatever. I think maybe the smokiness is a little bit too much for me. Maybe we will have some fun with mustard.

[00:04:00]Yeah. Yeah. I don't really know. Well, I guess I'm just going to dip them, right? Yeah. Yeah. This is going to be spicy. I mixed this up myself and um I don't really know how to do it.

[00:04:27]So fun. Yeah. I want some salt. I want some salt. I think that's going to work.

[00:04:32]They're kind of they're a little bit like nothing. Um I if you think about eating bigger pieces of uh squid or octopus or whatever and those are like the fireworks, these are like little snap and pops compared to them. Yeah, you get a little bit of the vibe of um a squiddy thing, but yeah, their their own kind of textural experience.

[00:05:06]I don't know what's tinted this cotton seed oil. Kind of a reddish color. I don't know.

[00:05:13]Look how they're all in there, though.

[00:05:15]Kind of It's kind of fun looking. I don't know. That's How many did we get?

[00:05:19]It's like 1, two, three, four, five, six. Yeah, 15 to 18. Something like that.

[00:05:26]Maybe I like the soy sauce better than the mustard. I really thought, oh, mustard is the thing.

[00:05:33]I thought they would be firmer, so maybe there would be more time spent in my mouth where we're like kind of dealing with the mustard.

[00:05:40]Yeah, it's a little tedious to eat them all for you. Uh, I don't like them as much as um eating a bunch of like little sardines or something like that. I don't think I like them as much as the u aminoashid scallops either. These are an interesting treat. Uh not sure I've I've ever had them in Japan. Um though like you look on the Wikipedia and they are served in a fantastic variety of ways and they look so good. I guess when you think of like a whole meal of seafood like when someone's pulling out the stops to feed you in Japan, you know, the array of fish is so impressive and um fun. I can see like Yeah. You want you want a little bit of um visual variety like hey here's a here's a freaking mollisk or something, right?

[00:06:37]Yeah, they're okay. Getting kind of tired of like eating them. There's no ick factor, but almost remember when I had that pate a couple of weeks ago where just as I got into it and ate half of it, I was like, "What am I doing here?" You know? Um, and eating a bunch of these kind of kind of gives me that same sort of feeling.

[00:07:05]Um, it it's more interesting because like uh this is an interesting species and I haven't had it before. Whereas with a pate, it's kind of like I don't know. I sort of sort of see through the game there. Maybe that's because of my perspective as a westerner whereas the squid are more of an eastern curiosity to me. Yeah, you can see their little light eyeballs right a little bit. Right. Kind of falls apart. Like I know that if we break open the head of this guy, all it's just going to be a bunch of mush. It's not going to be appetizing looking. Random seafood Oregon stuff. It almost It's like when you open up a sardine and you know, not eggs, but you get the big sort of melt thing. You know who's got the biggest flag coming off their head? This guy's got good ones coming off of both sides. Yeah. You see, most of them kind of like have Oh, okay.

[00:08:07]Yeah, this one's got two. That's pretty big. What am I doing here? Okay. One thing about this is I don't think that the um the oil serves them. Yeah, the cotton seed oil. It's just the texture of the oil is too much on these guys.

[00:08:24]These look like you could put them on like a fish hook and um other fish would be interested in them, right?

[00:08:36]But yeah, I don't I don't think you'd want to can these in water. I think the oil keeps them intact in a way the way that like water or vinegar doesn't.

[00:08:50]And that's the last one.

[00:08:53]Yeah, I wouldn't go out of my way for these. Maybe they would have been a little bit more pleasant on a cracker or something, but then it seems just outrageous to put them on a cracker. And I don't think their texture would stand up to being in the mix with something else that's kind of crunchy. So, if it's the only way you're ever going to eat firefly squid, then like satisfy your curiosity. But I might just wait until the next time I'm in Japan to give these a shot. Right. Right. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.

[00:09:18]Bye-bye. Who feeds this cat? I mean, me and my wife do, but who really feeds this cat? You know what I mean? That's right, my Patreon supporters. Join my Patreon. The link is on the screen somewhere. That's a real link. And when you join, you'll get to watch some exclusive videos. Sure. But you'll also have the satisfaction of helping me create canned fish files as well as feeding this cat just like this totally normal person that suddenly became a deans listister by joining my Patreon's top support tier. Well, in that case, and look, these other people were just totally normal people walking around, but this week they became fishy freaks.

[00:10:00]Benjamin Ericson, Cabana Fog Hat, Sam Palmer, and Spacey Ghost. All right, thanks again everybody. Bye.