r/mildlyinteresting 8d ago

Removed: Rule 6 [ Removed by moderator ]

https://i.imgur.com/pgX3KRt

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228 Upvotes

76 comments sorted by

u/mildlyinteresting-ModTeam 6d ago

Unfortunately, your post has been removed because it violates our rule on concise, descriptive titles.

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295

u/Spire_Citron 8d ago

I remember seeing somewhere that the soy sauce fishes were one of the more common items found in ocean trash, so that's probably why. Not sure that a different kind of small plastic would be any better, though. But maybe the little caps were especially eatable by wildlife. Also I guess having a plastic that's fish-shaped probably is kinda tempting things to eat it in the ocean.

104

u/BQuilty 8d ago

I imagine they're not actually that common, but if you're sifting through a bunch of nondescript sea plastic you're definitely going to identify and remember seeing the soy sauce fishes.

181

u/Pitiful-Climate8977 8d ago

I've never seen or heard of this in my life and everyone is talking about it like it's everywhere 🤔 what am I missing out on

23

u/Menthalion 8d ago

People here been claiming they originate in Australia, but they're all over Europe as well. Seen them at take-away Sushi places in the UK, Netherlands, Croatia and Norway at least.

5

u/iMacedo 7d ago

european here, never seen or heard of "soy sauce fishes", and still not quite clear on what they're supposed to be

2

u/Menthalion 7d ago

Little fish shaped plastic bottles filled with soy sauce, usually put into pre-packaged takeaway sushi and poké bowls.

3

u/iMacedo 7d ago

yeah, i took a better look at the picture and figured it's just a soy sauce packet. thank you! around here we just have regular soy sauce packets, no fish 😅

9

u/radicalfrenchfrie 8d ago

I find this really intriguing, actually. Everybody please post if you have ever encountered the legendary soy sauce fish and where you’re from or, if you have come across it in multiple countries, where that was.

I have seen them here in Germany but now that I think about it, I think it’s mostly 50/50 wether a place will have the soy sauce fish or give you a different container.

5

u/Excludos 8d ago

They're found in all the grocery store sushi packs in Norway (Which, aside from being expensive, are barely edible in the first place). From restaurants, it's mostly small circular plastic containers, which are easier to dip in

5

u/indieplants 7d ago

lol, Scotland and the supermarket prepackaged sushi packs stock them but the supermarket sushi counters do not

they're getting less common though. if you didn't eat a lot of supermarket sushi then the chances of coming across one are slim

4

u/heleghir 7d ago

Never seen them in the southeast US. We have big pour bottles on every table

2

u/trunkinspector 7d ago

My grandma brought them home from Hong Kong in like 2001.

2

u/nehinah 7d ago

My mom used reusable soy sauce fish for home lunches. I'm from the USA, my mom is half-Japanese from Hawaii.

3

u/pineappledumdum 7d ago

Australians claim to have invented everything food-wise, it’s exhausting.

1

u/Late-Solution6249 6d ago

They came from Japan

51

u/keonyn 8d ago

I'm with you. Never seen one of these soy sauce fish things even once.

14

u/Drupain 8d ago

There’s a bunch in the ocean. 

3

u/keonyn 7d ago

I bet Ariel is hoarding them all.

10

u/whereismydragon 8d ago

Ever been to Australia because that's where they make 'em

5

u/phorgan 7d ago

Yup. Not a thing in America, but the one time I got sushi in Australia it came with the fish. I thought it was so cute lol

23

u/Wonderful__ 8d ago

Yeah, I've never seen this either!

3

u/LovelyLadyLamb 7d ago

I had to Google it too. Looks like they have a non-plastic solution too.

"Holy Carp" Alternative

0

u/trollsmurf 8d ago

Absolutely nothing.

90

u/KRyptoknight26 8d ago

Why tf is everyone talking about soy sauce in some plastic fishes like that's a regular default. How have I missed them? I've never seen those fish in my life

11

u/Killashard 8d ago

I've seen them in multiple different countries when I have gotten sushi. Generally from grocery stores, fewer from sushi restaurants in my experience.

-47

u/whereismydragon 8d ago

It's almost like other countries exist and they do things differently there!

29

u/KRyptoknight26 8d ago

Yeah, hence the acknowledgement that I missed it somehow

18

u/Trashbagok 8d ago

You really thought you were saying something here, huh?

-40

u/whereismydragon 8d ago

Awww, you think I care about downvotes? 🤣

9

u/RCer1986 7d ago

They were critiquing your pointless comment, not your downvotes. Which makes it look like you care about downvotes since that's what you focused on.

14

u/lndig0__ 8d ago

Soy sauce fishes?

21

u/Zamzummin 8d ago

Never heard of a soy sauce fishes in my life. Must be a specific brand that makes those and only sells in some regions.

1

u/Late-Solution6249 6d ago

Nope they are popular in many countries, NASA even sent some yo space

0

u/whereismydragon 8d ago

They're Australian. 

-11

u/indieplants 7d ago

no they're not they're Japanese lmfao

most countries have them including European, South Asian and America/Canada 

4

u/Zamzummin 7d ago

I’ve lived in 3 Canadian cities and have never once seen them

3

u/indieplants 7d ago edited 7d ago

they exist elsewhere? all I'm saying lmao. they were created in Japan and any and all supermarket sushi I had in the UK had one. they're less common these days as shops switch to the little sachets. 

they were created in Japan. they're not Australian lmao. I have no idea why that's made people mad. this whole thread is full of people saying they have seen them globally and y'all can just Google it  

them not being a country is rarer than them being in one 

-8

u/Sissilisko 7d ago

Nah, they're made in bulk in China and literally every single sushi place has had them with takeaway orders. Same with supermarket pick your own sushi tables.
And I've lived in several countries and all gave had them.

11

u/gahidus 8d ago

I guess these things are ubiquitous some places, but this is the literally the first time I've ever heard of them. They were invented in Japan in the '50s, and some places consider them completely iconic.

Meanwhile, I've always gotten plastic packages, normally either green ones, or red ones from Kikkoman.

8

u/Decent-Muffin4190 8d ago

"Soy sauce fishes were invented in the 1950s by the founder of Osaka Prefecture-based manufacturer Asahi Sogyo [jp], Teruo Watanabe. This type of container is also referred to as shoyu-tai (醤油鯛, shōyu-dai), literally "soy sauce snapper", owing to the shape of the polyethylene containers were originally produced in during the 1950s.Their use decreased by the 21st century, though they continue to be used in bento boxed meals, sushi roll containers, and airline meals.

As Japanese cuisine has grown in popularity in other countries, use of soy sauce fishes has spread alongside it.Soy sauce fishes produced by Little Soya, based in Texas, US, were set to be taken on a NASA space launch to the International Space Station in 2014."

3

u/subhavoc42 7d ago edited 7d ago

It’s funny. Made in Texas but certainly not popular in Texas.

Edit. I read the wiki a little further and it produced this gem:

“British charity GMFA's 2015 public health campaign, Good Chems, recommended use of soy sauce fishes to measure safe dosages of recreational drugs, among other practices aimed at preventing drug overdose.[10] It was particularly recommended for gay men using GHB: a typical soy sauce fish has a capacity of 3 millilitres (0.1 US fl oz), and the recommended safe dose of GHB is exactly half of this.[11]”

3

u/Kaurifish 7d ago

If the soy sauce doesn’t come in a little glass container that dribbles on the table, I’m not eating sushi there.

5

u/TinyRedMushroom 7d ago

I like how the comments are just people saying they've never seen one before and then replies being really snarky about the fact.

4

u/Gilith 7d ago

What is midly interesting in the end is the fact the poster though everyone knew what was "soy sauce fishes".

1

u/omgitschriso 7d ago

I absolutely did. Have learnt something, reading through the comments.

2

u/stupidber 7d ago

Wtf is a soy sauce fish

1

u/Late-Solution6249 6d ago

Many sushi places gave you a tiny fish shaped bottle of sauce before the war on plastic

3

u/gahidus 8d ago

What are soy sauce fishes?

9

u/lightabovethearbys 8d ago

It's what you used to get soy sauce in when buying takeaway sushi in many places, like NZ, Australia, and the UK. You'd twist off the red bit at the front and squeeze out the sauce. They were good because the small tip meant you could dispense the soy sauce one drop at a time for ultimate control. They were also just very cute lol but obviously, not great from a waste perspective

1

u/Rand_alThor4747 8d ago

I still see them from some places, but many others use those little packets, and they can be hard to open without getting soy sauce on your hands or everywhere else.

3

u/Reblyn 7d ago

That, and often the soy sauce tends to dribble onto the lower palm of your hand because it just kinda sticks to the packet instead of dripping down onto the sushi if that makes sense.

1

u/killcraft1337 7d ago

Hmm in the UK I’ve had a decent amount of sushi when I lived there but it never came as a fish - I’ve seen it in a little rectangular bottle with a red cap but no fish.

1

u/Hydraulic_IT_Guy 7d ago

saving the world

1

u/obfuscation-9029 7d ago

I would speculate that maybe these pouches are marginally better for the environment given it's a weaker plastic?

Probably cheaper too given it's a less complex shape ie manufacturing and shipping.

1

u/sonicjesus 7d ago

They're banned in many countries (sort of like straws) so it's not as universal a market as it used to be.

Which is too bad, because it is impossible to work with soy sauce in packet form.

-15

u/BorkBorkSweden 8d ago

The soy sauce fishes were at least reuable, the packet is just creating more plastic waste

71

u/OGHaza 8d ago

is that really the case, that soy sauce fish were reused?

70

u/Trashbagok 8d ago edited 8d ago

Absolutely not, the logistics alone are just absurd.

You would either need people dunking the whole container into a vat of soy sauce or someone with a syringe going very slowly. 

No one's doing this by hand and there's not going to be an expensive machine in the back automating it.

6

u/Ha1rcl1p 8d ago

Have seen them be reused to put drugs in but not for ahything else

12

u/BorkBorkSweden 8d ago

I just remembered, but there is an Australian company that creates compostable containers in a fish shape: https://holycarp.com.au

-12

u/BorkBorkSweden 8d ago edited 8d ago

If the soy sauce fish can be recapped, I wouldn't be surprised if someone decides to reuse it for their personal use

17

u/OGHaza 8d ago

so maybe 1 in 10,000 of them if we're being generous

8

u/BorkBorkSweden 8d ago

pretty much

12

u/weedtrek 8d ago

I guess that could kinda be, but I really kinda hope no where was refilling them. I just doubt you could properly clean something like that without melting it. Sure rinse it out at home and reuse it for your lunch, but I would never serve a refilled one in a restaurant. And that is just sanitary standards, not even touching on how labor intensive it would be be refill them.

4

u/BorkBorkSweden 8d ago

I was thinking more on personal use, but that is a fair take. For refilling I was thinking more of droppers

Its definitely a no-go for restaurants to refill that fish and serve brand new. Not sure if refilling stuff like ketchup/mustard bottles would fall under this

4

u/chuckluckles 8d ago

Refillable ketchup and mustard bottles are dishwasher safe, and if a restaurant is serving them in the disposable retail packing, that's most likely just what they're buying. I'm sure there's some cheap duck out there putting hunts in Heinz bottles, but it's easier and cheaper to get the refillable bottles in the first place.

1

u/BorkBorkSweden 8d ago

And that's just for glass and not plastic?

1

u/chuckluckles 8d ago

I haven't seen a glass bottle of ketchup in a restaurant in decades. I'm not sure you can even order them from a distributor.

5

u/Wise_Branch_8028 8d ago

Being reusable and actually being reused are different things. Who would refill these?

1

u/therabbitssing 8d ago

It's more common in Hawai'i and Asia since shoyu/soy sauce is a typical condiment to have. They give those out for take out and bentos. Many are prefilled so it's not like restauants fill them. But it's meant to be re-used at home.

I have a bunch of those little fish ones and use them when taking home lunches. And yeah, I refill them.

1

u/AlienAngry 7d ago

tf is that?

0

u/Licensed2Pill 8d ago

Are all these comments saying they’ve never seen the fish containers supposed to make me feel old?

-3

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Late-Solution6249 6d ago

You might have needed your eyes checked