What is sushi and how do you eat it?

When you travel around the world, you cannot help but be surprised that so many different people live on the same planet, differing from us not only in their faith and worldview, but also in their everyday habits. Just look at the differences between the traditional dishes of different peoples. However, after visiting the country and communicating with locals (preferably not in touristy places), a lot becomes clear. If we visit Japan or at least imagine the living conditions in ancient and modern Japan, its geographical location and climate, for example, and marvel at the delicacies of Japanese cuisine, it will become clear that the local cuisine simply could not have developed any differently. What for us are the bright exotic, for Japanese are the daily dishes, the unique recipe of which has been developed not to surprise the foreigners, but to use the poor gifts of nature and the results of hard work of man on the ground and in the sea with maximum efficiency. Sushi and sashimi are a prime example of this.

Like many modern Japanese things, sushi originated in Southeast Asia (it is still unclear whether it was in China, Vietnam, or Thailand) around the 4th century B.C., and in the 7th or 8th century A.D. the sushi recipe reached Japan. Originally, sticky rice served to preserve fish. The only way to preserve the catch and raw meat for several months in ancient times was through fermentation or pickling. Raw fish or pork were cut up, salted, and placed under a burden. With this method, fish and meat were ready in 50 to 60 days. Over time, it was discovered that rice speeds up the fermentation process and allows one to keep fish for up to two years because it releases lactic acid during fermentation (just like sauerkraut). In this case, raw fish is edible in just a few days, and when stored in rice for a long time, it acquires a special flavor. The lactic acid of rice breaks down raw fish and meat into amino acids and makes them easily digestible. In some places in Vietnam, Malaysia and other Asian countries you can still find precursors to sushi – meat or fish fermented in rice. At first, the over-fermented “spent” rice was thrown away, but when the time for fermentation decreased with the invention of rice vinegar, the rice had no time to decompose and could be eaten quite well. Thus came the simplest of rice and fish sushi (nari-sushi). Sushi prepared according to this recipe has a rather unpleasant smell, so they have not become as popular as later variants. Nari sushi is now found only in a few restaurants in Japan. Funa sushi is a private version of nari sushi. They are made only from fermented funa fish (a type of carp). Saba sushi is made with mackerel.

Cooking sushi In China by the 10th century sushi went out of use, and Japanese cooks in the 8th-10th centuries changed a little the Chinese recipe and began to wrap fresh fish, not salted, in vinegar-soaked rice. That’s how sei sei sushi came to be. They were already a dish in their own right, not a way to preserve fish. In the 17th century a modernized version appeared: haya-sushi. Such sushi was filled not only with fish, but also with other seafood and fresh, pickled or dried vegetables. Boiled rice was topped with vinegar mixed with seawater, sake, and sugar. Traditional ways of cooking this dish appeared in every area of Japan. In the 18th century there were already all the modern types of sushi. They were sold everywhere in stores and stalls, and were served in restaurants in large cities. At this time sushi was served with wasabi and other sauces.

At the beginning of the 19th century, sushi underwent another change that made this dish later popular worldwide. Life in Edo (the old name of Tokyo) was already hectic in the 19th century. Busy people often did not have time for home-cooked meals. The famous Edo chef Hanaya Yohei proposed the dish that became the first fast food in history: nigiri sushi. (The original name for this dish was edomai-sushi because it used fish and shellfish caught near Edo.) You could take them with you on the road and eat them with chopsticks or your hands. To this day, such sushi is still part of the bento, the lunch boxes that children and adults take with them. The fish in nigiri sushi is not fermented, but quickly processed in soy sauce, so there is no need for seasoning. The original nigiri-sushi was cooked in seconds and could not be stored for long. In its modern form, nigiri sushi is a piece of seasoned rice with a slice of fish on top, tied with a ribbon of seaweed. An alternative to nigiri sushi in the 19th century was mosaic kansai sushi, which originated in Osaka. They were sold in beautiful boxes or bamboo leaves, and the rice in them was mixed with various ingredients. Today, Osaka sushi is not as popular as nigiri sushi, probably because it is harder to prepare.