<Begin Segment 22>

SY: How big a business was it when you came back?

FK: Gosh, I don't know. Dollar-wise I couldn't even --

SY: How many people?

FK: Well, when I came back it must have been about six people in the factory.

SY: So you didn't have to do all the dirty work anymore.

FK: No, we still had to make the surimi, so that was part of the manpower we needed to make the paste. But then a number of years later, when the fish started getting scarce, then we couldn't get the fish out of San Pedro and we started getting it from San Diego, San Francisco and then Portland, Oregon, and then the last bout was in Washington. And then I started to worry that we're running out of fish and it's getting more and more expensive. Then Japan came up with this system where they have a mother ship that docks in the Bering Sea, it's a huge ship and they would have satellite boats that go out and catch the fish and bring it back and they would process... do everything that we did on board the mother ship and freeze it in twenty-two pound blocks, forty-four in a case, and then they'd sell it frozen and that solved our problem of not having to go through this cutting the fish and spooning the fish and so that again was another step forward.

SY: Wow, and that was how far into the business?

FK: That was about 1975 so that was a little bit later. But meanwhile, in talking about trying to find something for the American public...

SY: You started thinking about that right?

FK: So my dad tried making some canned... he'd make surimi balls and fry it and can it, but you got to remember in those days, because of the religion, fish and seafood was eaten on Fridays. And it was almost like being penalized for all the sins that you had done for the first five days, so on Friday you're a sinner so you have to eat fish. So fish was not something that people went out to go look for and to go eat. That was like they were being penalized. So when I came out with my product and I thought it was fantastic, I came out with three products. I called my company Sea Bon Seafoods. C'est si bon in French is "good." But my si bon is S-E-A-B-O-N, Sea Bon Seafood. And I came out with an imitation bologna, salami and sausage. So I called my bologna "Sea-loni."

SY: Clever.

FK: And then my sausage, "Sea-lami" and my sausage, "Sea-sage." And the products were pretty good. I mean, obviously it was different, but the texture is little different and the flavor base is different but it was pretty good.

SY: I'll take your word for it.

FK: Yes, it's not in the market today. [Laughs] The reason was going back to religion. I personally was one of the demonstrators to go to the markets like Ralphs and Vons and I would have my little cart there and then I would cut a little piece and I'd say, "Would you please try it?" and most people would gather around and they say, well, and they'd grab it in the toothpick and say, "Well, what is it?" And I'd say, "This is an imitation bologna made out of fish," and then one of two things, one would put it down and say, "I don't eat fish," or they have a face like, "This is not for us." Maybe one out of ten would try it and they would say, "Oh, it's alright," but the problem was the bologna and sausage, that's very cheap commodity because maybe unbeknownst to most people, they don't put the finest part of the meat in the sausages and things like that. Well, my price was, I was selling for about dollar fifty to two dollars and they're selling for forty, fifty cents a pound so that was the two things. So the health aspect flew out the window, one, because of religion and one is because the disdain for seafood. So that ended my venture into my fame and that was one of many that I tried but it didn't work. Then about, right after '75 they came out with the frozen surimi in Japan then I realized that there might be a problem getting fish because now all the whole industry like in Japan at that time, there was over four thousand kamaboko factories in Japan, small, medium and large factories, four thousand plus. Today there's one thousand or less than a thousand so three quarters of the companies closed up already. And so what I had pictured right after the army was that there's not that much future, well, it took a number of years but in Japan they're having the same problem. The young people are not eating kamaboko like you are not eating kamaboko as we have discussed the other day.

SY: Special occasions.

FK: That's right, only special occasions, that only happens once or twice a year. Well, you can't have a business for once or twice a year. So anyway I found that the surimi, the fish that's caught in the Bering Sea, there's a limit to the catch, the biomass, they say that's the largest biomass in the world but then there's a limit to if you keep catching it. So around that time I heard that in the Gulf of Mexico the shrimp industry... or the Gulf of Mexico, the National Marine... they called me and said that, "We have a species of fish here that you may be interested in." So I flew there and I was met by the agent and he said that the shrimpers, when they go shrimping... and if you don't understand shrimping, shrimp is a (bottom dweller). They're in the mud in the bottom of the ocean or whatever. And for a shrimper to catch the shrimp, they concocted this thing, it looks like a door, a door if you unhinge that door and you took that door, they put it on ropes on both sides and they put two of those and then they lower it to the bottom of the ocean. And then as they pull the thing it bounces and it stirs up the mud and bounces and the shrimp get scared. And they jump up and then there's a net right behind it to catch the shrimp, that's how the shrimpers catch shrimp. Well, what happens is there's also ground fish that's in the same area and they get caught as well. But the medium size and the large size, they have a market, in a retail market people eat that fish. The fish is called croaker and that's one of the species in Japan that's highly sought after for making kamaboko. A different species but it's in the family, so I knew that so I went there and then the reason they called me was that the delinquents, the small fish, the baby fish were the ones where they get tons and tons, millions and tons every year but they throw them away because there's no place... they can't sell it. And there's not enough for them to bring it in and use the ice to chill it. It's a waste for the shrimper so they discard it and its unbelievable amount of the baby fish that they throw away.

SY: And they're dead.

FK: They are dead because they drown, fish drown. So I was in the midst of perfect size for making kamaboko, eight inches, six to eight inches and so we opened up a factory there. And that's how I got to know a very good family friend that's a friend of mine and a partner of mine in Alabama and we started the Nichi Bei Fisheries and me make primarily surimi for the kamaboko industry. And I visited my competitors in Los Angeles and I told them that I'm going to Alabama to make surimi and hopefully that you would support me. I get a good and thank you very much and we'll support you, and so I went and I started to make it and it took a number of months and months to make a quality thing, but when I finally got to a point where I could sell it and I went to my competitors my price and the price they get it from Japan there was a big difference. They're paying seventy-five cents a pound and mine's about a dollar thirty a pound and so all that goodwill and everything went out the window. And so now I had to use of all of what I had so I figured I can't do this, not enough, so I took a sample to Japan and I went and I bumped into this Suzuhiro Kamaboko in Japan and they welcomed me with open arms and they said that he was there several years before and he's says, "Yes, the croaker is a good species and yes, you should be able to make good quality. The one you brought here is okay, but you should be able to make something much, much better." And he sent his son and his employees, they did that for two years, they sent a bunch of people to upgrade my product, and I began to wonder well gosh he's going to send me a bill one of these days and I don't know how I'm going to do it. So I asked him, "You better send me a bill, interim bill, because I don't know what you're going to charge me." He said, "Kawana-san, I'm glad you're doing this and it's good for the industry so please let me support you." And I said, wow, this is a good family, a really good family.

SY: So he eventually benefitted though because you gave him.

FK: Well, I gave him but he never bought any before because what had happened the following year we had the hurricane, Frederick, and it tore our company apart and we couldn't do anything for eight months. We finally recovered eight months later, the roads were blocked and it was torn up and everything. And then the following year after that we had a heat wave so we couldn't bring any fish in. And then the year after that, the fish, the croaker species disappeared from the Gulf of Mexico, the species disappeared. There were other fish that were still available but the croaker disappeared and to this day they have not given me a satisfactory reply to what happened to that species. They don't know either it just disappeared overnight. Today there's maybe some three four inch delinquents but that's gone so that ended our... we close up.

SY: So it was done, that was it.

FK: That was it.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.