(no subject)

HAKODATE, Hokkaido -- Lucky Pierrot, a hamburger restaurant chain active mostly in Hokkaido, will begin selling whale burgers on Thursday.


Mainichi Shimbun
A whale burger.

Whale and lamb burgers were the two most popular choices of fillings in a contest held by the Silk Road Group, which owns Lucky Pierrot.

"We want to improve the taste of both burgers," a spokesman for Silk Road Group said.

Silk Road Group conducted a contest to find a popular burger filling.

It was originally only going to sell a burger based on the most popular choice, which was the lamb that will be used in its Genghis Khan Burger - an idea proposed by Koichi Sera, 40, an assistant professor at Hokkai Gakuen University.

However, it also added whale meat, for its Kujira Burger, which was the second most popular choice. The idea for the whale burger was put forward by Toshihiro Okawa, 37, an employee of a whale meat sales company in Tokyo.

Lucky Pierrot's whale burgers will go on sale just two days after the International Whale Commission upheld a moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan had been seeking to rescind the ban that has been in place since 1986. (Mainichi)

- I never really know how to take things like this. While I do love everything about the Japanese culture,
they really do just what they want to do. Where else in the world could such a thing happen? Whales are not
food. They are not sushi. But a country can eat what it wants I suppose. When you live on an island everything becomes a usable resource.

..and if I went there, I might even eat some..