Cololabis saira
ingredient / ingredient-sanma-harawata
わた
Cololabis saira is the innards (wata or harawata) of Pacific saury (Cololabis saira) eaten when the fish is salt-grilled with its organs intact. Their slight bitterness after grilling is regarded as part of what is appreciated.
On this page (8 sections)
Reading the bitterness
Regarding the slight bitterness noticed when Pacific saury (Cololabis saira) is salt-grilled and eaten with its innards, Takahisa Utsumi, division head at Yamasue Co., a seafood wholesale intermediary at the Funabashi Municipal Wholesale Market, explained in a 2021 Weathernews interview: 「サンマのはらわたのほろ苦さは、胆汁によるものです」 (in translation: "The slight bitterness of saury innards comes from bile"). The article presents an interview comment from a wholesale-market participant. It does not substantiate a bile–bitterness connection through chemical analysis or sensory testing and remains one interviewee's experience-based explanation.
Saury innards also appear in Haruo Satō's poem 「秋刀魚の歌」 (in translation: "Song of Saury"), written in 1921 and collected in 『我が一九二二年』 (in translation: "My Nineteen Twenty-Two") in 1923. At the dinner table, 「（前略）小さき箸をあやつりなやみつつ／父ならぬ男にさんまの腸(はら)をくれむと言ふにあらずや」 (in translation: "...struggling with her small chopsticks, the girl offers the saury's innards to a man who is not her father") depicts a girl giving the fish's innards to a man who is not her father. Near the end, the poem says 「さんま、さんま、／さんま苦いか塩つぱいか」 (in translation: "Saury, saury, are you bitter or salty?"). This last line is a self-mocking verse in a scene of eating saury while hot tears fall, not a direct description of the innards themselves as 「苦い」 (in translation: "bitter"). The poem cannot serve as direct evidence for bitterness of the innards.
An explanatory article by one cook indicates a rule of thumb for saury innards: fresh ones can be grilled together with the fish for their slight bitterness, but once freshness declines, a strong off-odor and harshness appear, so the article's judgment is to remove them before grilling. What is linked here to declining freshness is off-odor and harshness; it is not stated that bitterness itself increases. Because this is an explanation from a single cooking article, without support from sensory evaluation or chemical analysis, the relationship between freshness and taste cannot be generalized.
Sources for this overview
Checked for this overview: Direct source of Utsumi's explanation attributing the bitterness to bile.
Checked for this overview: Source for the poem's scene of giving away the innards and its line asking whether the saury is bitter.
サンマの内臓「取る？」or「取らない？」料理人の回答に…『疑問が解けた！』
Checked for this overview: Connects to the article's rule of thumb for keeping or removing the innards depending on freshness, and to the limitation of not conflating bitterness, off-odor, and harshness.
Other names: はらわた (ja), 腸（はら） (ja, identification medium)
Hypotheses and recipe candidates for this entry are on the Japanese page.
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
Sensory (1)
Scope: A comment from a wholesale-market source interviewed in a Weathernews article (September 24, 2021)
Note: A comment from a single interviewee (a seafood wholesale industry source); no chemical analysis or other corroboration is presented.
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ingredient-sanma-harawata —has_perceived_bitterness_associated_with→ "Takahisa Utsumi, division head at Yamasue Co., a seafood wholesale intermediary at the Funabashi Municipal Wholesale Market, comments that the mild bitterness of sanma (Pacific saury) guts comes from bile."How processing and cooking change it (1)
Scope: A Yahoo! News Expert article by an anonymous cook, 「ぱぷちゃん」 (Papuchan), dated September 21, 2025.
Note: An explanatory article by one cook, without peer-reviewed or sensory-panel corroboration. The problems it names when freshness declines are 「臭み」 (in translation: "off-odor") and 「えぐみ」 (in translation: "harshness"), not an increase in 「苦味」 (in translation: "bitterness") itself; these must not be conflated.
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ingredient-sanma-harawata —is_prepared_by→ "A cook's rule of thumb: salt-grill fresh saury with its innards and enjoy their slight bitterness, but remove the innards before grilling saury that has lost freshness."Culture (1)
Scope: The full poem as held by Aozora Bunko.
Note: 「さんま苦いか塩っぱいか」 (in translation: "Is the saury bitter or salty?") is a self-mocking poetic question about the taste of saury eaten while hot tears fall; it does not directly describe the innards themselves as 「苦い」 (in translation: "bitter"). The poem does not establish why the girl gives away the innards. It is not used as direct evidence for bitterness of the innards.
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ingredient-sanma-harawata —is_documented_in→ "Haruo Satō's poem 「秋刀魚の歌」 (in translation: "Song of Saury"), written in October 1921, first published in the November issue of the third volume of 「人間」 (in translation: "Humanity"), and included in the collection 『我が一九二二年』 (in translation: "My Nineteen Twenty-Two") in 1923, depicts a girl giving saury innards to a man who is not her father in the dinner-table scene: 「愛うすき父を持ちし女の児は／小さき箸をあやつりなやみつつ／父ならぬ男にさんまの腸（はら）をくれむと言ふにあらずや」 (in translation: "The girl with a father of little affection struggles with her small chopsticks and offers the saury's innards to a man who is not her father"). Near the end is the line 「さんま、さんま、／さんま苦いか塩つぱいか。／そが上に熱き涙をしたたらせて」 (in translation: "Saury, saury, are you bitter or salty? Hot tears fall upon it")."