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.
h2. Part 2: Some History
Have you been to Pink Godzilla in Santa Cruz ? They have surprising variety of rolled sushi, many of which are new to me. The restaurant is very innovative in the combination of different fish and vegetables.
In fact, rolled sushi is largely an invention of the US, especially the kind like avocado rolls, hot spicy tuna rolls, and many more complicated-named rolls, and has now been imported back to Japan as a hot trend. This is adding another page in the long history of sushi eating.
The history of sushi goes back as long as to B.C.400 in South East Asia, where people used uncooked rice to marinate raw fish for preservation purposes. Fish was sprinkled with salt and buried in rice. Rice’s fermentation helped fish last long, and provided a rare source of protein at that time. Only fish was served and rice was thrown away.
When this kind of preserved fish came north to Japan around 8th century, people started eating both the fish and the rice. The rice was soft and slightly sour due to the fermentation. This sourness was later replaced by just adding vinegar to cooked rice, when people in Edo era (17th century to mid 19th century) wanted to eat sushi quickly without waiting the fermentation time. But this was not yet the sushi as we know it. The vinegar rice was served not only with fish but also with some vegetables and cooked dried food. We still see developed versions of this kind in many parts of Japan.
The sushi of today -- a small ball of rice and a slice of raw fish on top with wasabi (the spicy green paste) in between -- is actually called ‘Edo sushi’ because it was strictly invented there in Edo (now Tokyo). The Edo era gave birth to many avant-garde cultures and free-wheeling ways of life. A man named Yohei Hanaya is said to have started this particular sushi style as fast food in 1822 or 1823.
Edo sushi consisted of five important elements: vinegar, sashimi (raw fish), wasabi, nori (sea weed) and soy sauce. Soy sauce became available in large quantities only in the Edo era, and people found how delicious it was to eat sashimi with soy sauce. Wasabi also began to be grown around the region in Edo era. And fish was abundant in Tokyo Bay. Yohei put all these elements together to make one-bite snack which was served at a stand. It became quickly popular and many more sushi stands were seen along many streets in Edo.
Edo sushi is said to then have spread all over Japan after Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 (Taisho Era), which left 143 thousand people dead or missing in the greater Tokyo region. Large number of sushi chefs fled devastated Tokyo to other parts of the country in order to survive. Later, sushi spread all over the world, thanks to curious gourmets everywhere.
h2. Part 3: The Encounter
In the US, many sushi places are huge and theatrical. One is Ozumo in San Francisco, which serves pretty good sushi, but the dramatic atmosphere is typically American. In Japan, sushi places are more private and personal. This is exactly why you wonder where you should sit when you step into a sushi restaurant.
I told you already that the counter is not for people who are novices in sushi eating. This is because the counter is where you see the chief chef eye-to-eye across the counter, so you should be ready to make most out of that location. If you sit there and just order something overwhelmingly ordinary like tuna rolls, you will not impress the chef or other knowledgeable customers.
Even deciding where to sit at the counter is important. If I were either new to the place or not knowledgeable about fish, I would not sit at the center of the counter because it is too much the center stage. Part of the Japanese manner is that you always accept little less than what is offered. Similarly, you can also enjoy "upgrading" yourself slowly from sitting at a table first, to end of the counter, and then some day at last to the counter center as you become comfortable with the chef at the restaurant and learn much about fish and sushi.
As you might know already, you can order sushi pieces one by one at the counter, whereas you would usually get a set plate at the table. You can ask for sushi a la carte also at the table, but you should do so maybe three or four kinds at a time (not one by one), so you will not trouble the chef too much.
Once you do sit at the counter, if you are a wise sushi eater you will first look to see what is in the glass case. You see what fish are in season, and find the best-looking fresh fish. Then you ask the chef for those fish in a meaningful order and at reasonable timing as the dinner proceeds.
Not Fish
I will talk about the myth (or non-myth) of the right order of sushi eating in my next lesson. First, though, I will look at the non-fish elements served at sushi restaurants, such as gari and tamago.
Gari is the pink sliced pickled ginger that comes with sushi. It is made of ginger with sweet vinegar. and has been served with fresh fish as long as Edo sushi has existed, maybe even longer. It is called gari because of the sound it makes in your mouth, "gari gari," a way of describing the sound of your teeth biting into a fiber-full substance.
Gari is served with sushi for two reasons. The older one is because ginger has sterilization effect, in case the fish is not completely fresh. In Edo era, it was very important that sushi stand had this kind of remedy for the customer, not so much for curing but preventing any future upsetting stomach.
The new reason is because gari has neutralizing effect on taste when your tongue becomes numb in eating series of fish. This helps you taste a new piece in a sensitive way.
The same reasoning applies to tamago (omelet) served at any sushi restaurant. The omelet, cut into small pieces, is made of eggs, fish broth, some mirin (sweet sake) and salt, and it is slightly sweet. After eating several pieces of sushi with soy sauce, you might want to pick up a piece of omelet and "reset" your tongue. You can order the omelet by itself or on a rice ball.
I hear many chefs now buy omelet at market. But the great chefs still create home-made omelet with their own broth. Many connoisseurs of sushi even say that it is the omelet, and not sushi itself, that determines the grade of a sushi restaurant. So, I suggest you never underestimate that tiny omelet.
h2. Part 4: The order of sushi eating
Many people miss Toshi Sushi, a popular and vibrant sushi restaurant that used to be on El Camino Real in Menlo Park. But I wonder if everybody knows that Toshi has since opened a fabulous Japanese restaurant, also in Menlo Park on Sharon Park Drive, called Kaygetsu. He has sharpened his intricate style and created an upgraded restaurant which serves a full course kaiseki (a meal served in tea ceremony) as well as la carte dishes and sushi. Looking at him make sushi in a smooth rhythmical way, I almost feel that I am back in Tokyo. Although he has also upgraded the price of sushi, it is worth having such a meal in a nice and calm setting once in a while.
There are many controversies about whether sushi is a formal meal or a casual one. I already described the history of sushi in my Sushi Lesson Part 2, which explains that sushi started as fast food. This proves that it has been a casual food.
However, low or popular culture can creep up to become high culture. Think of kabuki, a traditional Japanese all-male theater which also started in Edo era (17–mid 19 century). The name kabuki comes from a word "kabuku" which describes a state not standing straight up but leaning. People called it so, because kabuki actors were regarded as transients and outside of a normal way of life. It was no high culture. When people went to see a kabuki play, they would eat their box meal during the play, talk with a friend about which actor has what mistress, etc., and yell at the stage if they liked or did not like the acting or the story. So, it was a very noisy atmosphere.
But now, going to see a kabuki play is a formal thing to do in Japanese cultural life. If you are sitting closer to the stage, you would wear something nice, and all the people have to be quiet and appreciate what is going on on the stage.
The same "trading up" applies to sushi, which, after almost two hundred years of time passing, has gained much respect. In this time, some rules have emerged. One is the right order of eating sushi.
Regardless of whether you want to follow it or not, there are some good reasons for this order. The idea is that you should proceed from plainer to richer tastes.
You might want to start with some white fish like bream, red snapper or flatfish, then try what is called “fish with shiny skin” like mackerel, sardine, halfbeak, and dark colored meat fish like bonito, tuna and salmon. You then proceed to squid, octopus and shellfish. Closer to the end, you might want to add sea urchin, salmon roe or some cooked fish like eel or conger that come with thick sauce. To finish, some people order rolled sushi wrapped in fragrant nori (the black sea weed) or even tamago (omelet) as almost like a dessert.
This order allows your tongue to taste every piece delicately. If you eat very rich fatty-tuna in the beginning, your tongue might become too numb to enjoy the sensitive taste of red snapper after that. I hear some sushi chefs are quite keen about in what order his customer eat sushi, while others say you should eat sushi as you like in the order you feel like.
As for myself, I cannot pass up having tuna in my first order as an earnest tuna lover, but I might try a more strict order soon, to see if I taste things differently. I once sat next to a man in Tokyo who kept ordering fish I have never heard of, and I wish I knew as many fish kinds as he did. He looked like an exact sushi connoisseur and must have had a much-extended arena for sushi eating.
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