Article source for : How to eat sushi properly
This is an eight-part series of blog postings from the now defunct Web site "Bayosphere":http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://bayosphere.com/. The postings were dug out of "archive.org":http://archive.org. Since the Bayosphere sushi postings were relatively short, they were all combined into one article here. Bayosphere was acquired around 2006 by "Backfence.com":http://backfence.com, which "shutdown":http://toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/tt.pl/article/1853/Cit-J_startup_Backfence_headed_to_deadpool in July 2007.
br. Aug 4, 2005 Toledo Talk posting titled "How to eat sushi properly":http://www.toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/comments.pl/9/1320 which pointed to the Bayosphere postings. That thread contains 23 comments. Here are a couple :
bq. *intrepid* said : "Actually, jr, if you've read the [Bayosphere] series, you'll see that there's a lot of symbolism, tradition and etiquette in eating sushi. It's an experience - not a meal!"
bq. *babbleman* said : "Despite the name, the series has almost nothing to do with "how to eat". It is really about the history of sushi."
br. Bayosphere blog postings by Noriko Takiguchi made between June and October 2005.
h2. Part 1: Read the Signs
I have several favorite sushi places in the Bay Area. Sushi Tomi in Mountain View is one of them, for example.
The experience of going to eat sushi in the US is quite nice because it is casual. You probably do not know that many people in Japan are apprehensive about going to a sushi restaurant, especially if they are new to the place. They worry because they are not sure their knowledge about sushi, and their manner in how they eat it, matches the earnest or sometimes rigid ways of the sushi chef who runs the place.
Sushi is among the most carefully prepared food to be served in Japan, together with soba (buckwheat noodle) and some kinds of coffee. Chefs who prepare sushi and run sushi restaurants need to be highly disciplined. After all, they are dealing with literally raw materials. (By the same token, the best soba has to be cooked to the exact al dente texture, and the best coffee has to be hand brewed to create super aroma from the most beautiful little ceramic cup.)
You see the signs of discipline everywhere in a sushi restaurant, even before you sit down and pick up the first piece of sushi. A very good sushi restaurant usually does not have red paper lanterns or menu outside the door. It is only decorated with a little curtain (called noren) which shows the name of the restaurant on a rough-textured bleached white cloth.
When you enter the place through wooden sliding doors, you are welcomed by chefs across the sushi counter. Their loud greeting sounds almost like "Russia!" But they are only saying the short version of "irasshai," or "welcome."
That short version is exact,and very important. It sounds crisp. And especially if the chefs say it as loud as they can, it shows that they are upbeat as they have been very busy from early hours of that day going to fish market, finding the best possible fish, rushing back as fast as they can and sharpening the world's sharpest knives.
You may notice that sushi chefs usually do not have hair on their arms. Every piece of sushi has to be produced from clean plain looking hands and arms. Chefs, I think, shave every day, unless there is some kind of industry-secret to deal with it. Also, you would rarely see chefs with beard, mustache, long hanging eyebrow or sunglasses. They have to look enormously plain.
Some historians say women have not been welcome behind the sushi counter because female body temperature is higher and not suitable for handling raw fish. When it comes to professional Japanese cooking, men seem to dominate the market today, especially in sushi areas.
The last part of today's lesson is the counter, which is the center piece of any sushi restaurant. You see signs there, too, about how serious the chefs are. If the counter is made of one big natural hinoki wood, the restaurant should be pretty good. And if the wood is not finished, meaning if it does not have any varnish on the surface, they are even more serious.
In good sushi restaurant, they serve sushi directly on the counter (without any plate). Since people use soy sauce, and might have some miso soup at the end, etc., if you are not careful, the counter will get a lot of spots. Here again is where the discipline comes in at a sushi place. Chefs have to keep wiping the counter top like crazy to save it from becoming dirty. The counter is usually for people who are not novices at eating sushi, so it is especially critical for them to keep it well attended.
My Sushi Lesson will continue next weekend.
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