[StangGuy]

I've also had whale sashimi, unfortunately it had been frozen and was ruined because of this. I also had two other cuts that were cooked, one was intestine and I believe the other was "cheek". The intestine cut was really good and also salty. The cheek was very tender and the taste was different from anything else I had eaten.

As far as whale consumption by the general population my wife says it is highly regional, being more popular in Yamaguchi prefecture and especialy Shimonoseki. Growing up in Kure, she said it was a regular part of school menus. However it is far less available now.

Most of the people that I talked to about the topic insist on being able to hunt whales because whale meat has a been a historic part of the Japanese diet. They also object to being told what to do by other people, much the way any countries citizens obejct to being told to do something by another country. I would also say that support for hunting of baleen whales is linked to the hunting of dolphins and porpoises. Only if you can get the communities that are involved in both to stop will either of them stop.

Of Iceland, Norway, the Faroe Islands, and Japan; Japan is probably the most likely to cease whaling. But I think they are also more resistant to outside influence because of their strong history of isolationism.