Conservation aside, most Japanese don't like it or eat it because it tastes bad, isn't clean, and is increasingly expensive. My mother growing up in post-war J

Conservation aside, most Japanese don't like it or eat it because it tastes bad, isn't clean, and is increasingly expensive. My mother growing up in post-war Japan was fed whale meat in school lunches. It used to be eaten as a necessity, a cheap hunter-gatherer protein in the wake of the devastating war. It tasted really bad she says, and she doesn't seek it out, but for reasons of nostalgia and because it's now expensive it seems to have become a delicacy for others.