December 6, 2017 • 44 mins
It's time to get real about raw fish! Will and Mango have their chopsticks ready and way too many questions on hand: Is blue fin really a delicacy? How do sushi chefs apply their soy sauce? And how California is the California roll? From the dish's Chinese origins to why Japanese foodies are intrigued by American rolls, we're going all in on sushi. Featuring The Story of Sushi author Trevor Corson.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what will what's that mango? So sushi's obviously everywhere now,
but do you remember when we were kids how exotic
it was In first grade, I've done this report on Tokyo,
and I remember the idea of eating raw fish just
seeming like so unimaginable to me. But that same year,
one of my friends got up in front of the
class and he told everyone he'd been to Japan and
he'd actually tried sushi and he claimed it was delicious.
(00:22):
I guess everybody else thought that was pretty discussed. Yeah,
no one believed to him, like they thought it was
gross and you know, it's raw fish. So being first grader,
as everyone was yelling like yuck and gross and just
shaking their heads in disbelief. And then like this, one
girl raised her hand and asked him, but what sushi
actually tastes like? He just smiled and said bubba. So
for years I actually thought like, maybe sushi does tasting
(00:44):
bubble gum. But of course now I do know what
it tastes like, and sushi's everywhere. But it made us
wonder how did we start eating these delicious fish rolls
in the first place, and how did it come to America,
and are you really supposed to be eating sushi with
her hands instead of your chopsticks. Let's dive in. Hey
(01:19):
their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
man guest Ticketer and on the other side of the
soundproof glass, just chowing down on a spicy tune or all.
Look at the thing, it's just drenched in soy sauce.
That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Tristan, why are
you using the sport? Oh man, he's got the wassabi
mix in there too. All these problems, but that actually
(01:39):
brings us to what today's episode is all about, and
that's an intervention for Tristan. Yeah, actually, I'm kidding, all right.
So there's a lot of common misconceptions about sushi out there,
and not just about how to eat it, but how
it's made, where it comes from, and even what's in it.
So on today's show, we're gonna take a good hard
look at what we think we know about sushi and
see if we can set the records right on one
(02:00):
of America's most popular and misunderstood finger foods. Yeah, well,
why don't we start right there, because that's amazing to
be Sushi is actually a finger food, and that's actually
the preferred way to eat it because sushi chefs like
to loosely pack their sushi. That way you can fall
a part in your mouth and the flavors can mingle better.
The problem is so many Americans are hung up on
eating sushi with chopsticks that chefs in the US actually
(02:22):
packed their sushi tightly, and that's how it will hold
together when grab with the sticks. It seems like such
a small thing, but a lot of people actually shy
away from sushi because they think you have to use
chopsticks to eat it. Really still, so Americans still don't
like chopsticks. I kind of felt like we've gotten over
that by this point. Yeah, apparently not so. I was
looking at this market research from you gov and they
(02:42):
conducted the survey on chopstick proficiency. This was back in
two thousand fourteen, and I found that seventies seven percent
of Americans preferred to use a knife and fork over
chop sticks when they eat Asian food. And most of
that reason is that Americans are just not good with chopsticks.
The survey claimed that thirty four percent of the country
rates is proficiency with chopsticks as fair or better, while
(03:05):
related as a not very good or terrible. Wow. And
so what about the other quarter of the country. They
haven't even tried chop sticks, explains it. The good news
for them is that counter to most people is thinking
it's perfectly proper to eat most kinds of sushi with
your fingers, and the only exception is sashimi. You know,
sushi means those thinly sliced pieces of fresh, rassy food
(03:26):
and those are served without rice. And because rassy food
can be a little slippery to handle with your hands,
using chop sticks is the way to go for those.
But maki rules or nagiri, you can use either chopsticks
or your fingers for those. All right, So we're breaking
down the barriers on today's show. And actually, I feel
like another big deterrent for people who don't eat sushi
or are some of the words that you just mentioned,
(03:47):
you know, the proper terms for different kinds of sushi,
And obviously these are Japanese words that anybody can look up.
But you know, for people that just want to eat
lunch and not have to learn a new language while
doing it, that that unknown vocabulary can actually be a
little bit in intimidating. Yeah, but if you know the definitions,
it isn't intimitting at all. So like the words sushii
literally means body cuts, so the whole dishes right there
(04:09):
in its name, right, And some of the other terms
are less literal, but they still give these details that
can help you distinguish between the different kinds of sushi.
So taking a geary for example, it's the kind of
sushi that consists of a small amount of rice with
a slice of raw fish on top. And the word
geary actually translates to grip or grasp, so again, in
a way, that's the whole dish, right, the slice of
(04:31):
fish grips the rice mount. And it's the same with
another kind of sushi, the maki roll. And this is
what most Americans picture when they think of sushi. You know,
it's the colorful circles of fish and veggies, and that's
surrounded by sushi rice and then this outer layer of
seaweed and the small pieces are cut from this longer
cylindrical rolls that are formed using I'm sure you've seen
(04:51):
it for those like woven bamboo mats. There's a called
maki su and you can probably guess the mat is
where the maki gets its name. All right, So there
you go, the most common types of sushi explained. You've
got body cuts, gripping fish, and matt rolls and actually
saying it out loud I can. Yeah, Yeah, it's probably
best that we stick with the Japanese words. Yeah, but
(05:13):
you know, you know what, I just realized we're only
a few minutes into this discussion and we've already messed
us off. What do you mean by that? Well, we've
been talking about sashimi as if it's a kind of sushi,
But like I mentioned earlier, sushini doesn't actually include rice,
so by definition it can't be sushi. Oh wow, you're right.
But at least the mistake gives us a chance to
talk about what's maybe the biggest misconception about sushi, and
(05:34):
that's that the word itself means raw fish. I mean,
it's it's it's an easy mistake to make because we
think of raw fishes like the defining component of the cuisine.
But an actuality, sushi is all about the rice, and
that's what the word really refers to it's that sour
tasting rice. Yeah, and if you look at the history,
you can actually see why rice deserves the top billing.
This is another thing most people don't know, but the
(05:56):
earliest form of sushi actually comes from China and not Japan.
It was later named narazushi, and it started as a
form of food preservation back in the third or fourth
century BC. It's different from the fresh fish we know today.
Narzushi was actually made by packing a wooden barrel with
all these layers of raw and salted fish and and
then cooked rice and then they'd set this heavy weight
(06:16):
on top and you'd let the whole thing for meant
for up to a year, right, And this work just
like with any other fermentation. You've got friendly bacteria that
fed on a substance. In this case it was starch
and the rice, and then it produced lactic acid in turn,
and the resulting acid is what helped preserve the fish
by slowing the growth of harmful bacteria you know that
would otherwise cause it to rot. And the technique is
(06:38):
thought to have first been used by farmers who lived
along the Makong River in Southeast Asia. So during the
rainy months, the river would sometimes flood and the water
would wash tons of carp into these nearby rice paddies,
and they didn't want this carp to go to waste,
and so the farmers came up with a new way
to store the fish until they were needed. I mean,
it's pretty ingenious. But what's funny to me about this
(06:59):
proto sushi or early sushi, is that nobody actually ate
the rice, and despite the crucial role it played in
the fermentation process, the rice was just tossed away afterwards,
and it was only the fish that was eaten. I mean,
we are talking about super sour year old rice. I
can't exactly blame them for not eating it. Yeah, but
the fish wasn't in his prime either. So I actually
(07:19):
asked gave what it tasted like, and he was saying,
after a year in the barrel, it would morph into
this pungent, gelatinous, almost cheese like. I mean, it couldn't
have been any better tasting than all that sur rice.
That is disgusting, but you know, if it makes you
feel any better. The Japanese did start eating both the
fermaute fish and the rice sometime after sushi made its
(07:41):
way to Japan, and this was I think around the
ninth century, so Buddhism was spreading throughout the country at
the time, and fermitte sushi helped meat that growing desire
for protein source. You know that that would fit into
their meatless diet, even if it did taste pretty sour.
I guess yeah. So I've read that the sour taste
was actually a plus for the Japanese at that time
because the rice vinegar industry had just taken off. This
(08:02):
was in the thirteenth century, and people actually came to
appreciate a little sour flavor in their cuisine because vinegar
was so popular in the markets. In fact, when Cooke's
found a faster way to for men cure all that
fish without the use of rice, Japanese started adding vinegar
to their sushi rice just so wouldn't lose that sour taste,
all right. So, so by this point we've got non
fer minute rice seasoned with vinegar, just like the kind
(08:23):
used in sushi today. So what about the fish that
when does it go from being pickled to being raw
like we're used to it now. So raw fish sushi
didn't actually become the norm until after refrigeration became such
a big thing in the twentieth century, but it did
start to crop up in some places during the eighteen hundreds.
So at that time, Tokyo or Edo as it was
(08:43):
called back then, was fostering the next generation of sushi.
And all these mobile food stalls that have begun to
crowd up in the streets, and this one man, his
name was Hanaya Yohi, he set himself apart from the
crowd by offering what's often considered the first example of
modern nagari sushi. So Yo has a great story. He
opened his stall near bridge in Tokyo that crossed the
Sumida River, and not only was that area highly traffic,
(09:07):
but it was easy access to all this fresh fish.
And in fact, the fish Yohai served was so fresh
that there was no need for men or cook it.
All you have to do was cut into slices and
hand pressed them onto mounds of vinegared rice, and the
process took minutes rather than the hours of days that
his competitors were, you know, spending curing fish. The Japanese
public fell immediately in love with it, and they loved
(09:28):
the fresh taste, but they also loved the fast prep time,
and his business just exploded, and all these years later,
it's still the most popular kind in Japan. I think
what's most surprising to me about the story is hearing
that sushi was a common street food in those early days. Like,
we have this idea in the US of sushi being
this really fancy, upscale cuisine, all these traditions and rules
(09:48):
that have to be observed. It's a kind of stigma
that can make sushi feel inaccessible to some people. So
it's it's actually pretty cool to hear about its humble origins. Yeah,
the story is helpful in making it more approachable, but
let's be honest, the big reason that people view sushi
is such a posh food is the price. I mean,
you can definitely find roles with imitation crab another kind
(10:09):
of filler everywhere from grocery stores to gas stations, airports,
but anything with actual sushi grade sushi is gonna cost you.
But it's definitely true, and I know that's the case
even in Japan, where rising costs have made sushi much
more of a special occasion food than that maybe it
once was. Yeah, I don't think the average Japanese citizens
would dispute that quality sushi is pricy and worth the price,
(10:30):
But the bigger sticking point for them would actually be
what Americans due to a food that costs so much.
Because I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we don't
tend to respect sushi the way it ought to be.
I saw you given that side, I go answer Tristan
that I don't want to pick on him anymore, but
I will mention as a general public service announcement that
you're you're really only supposed to use a tiny bit
of soy sauce with your sushi, you know, so you
(10:52):
don't drown out the other flavors. Most Japanese sushi chefs
actually brush a little bit of their own homemade sauce
right onto each piece of fish before served, And the
same thing happens with with sabi, you know, when when needed,
chefs will include some fresh was sabi between the fish
and the rice. Of course, none of this really happens
in the US, because chefs know that American sushi eaters
like to add those condiments themselves, you know, often to
(11:15):
access that. I've told you the story about my father
in law when we were at a restaurant one time
years ago, and he just had this brain lapse and
for some reason was thinking that it was avocado. Took
a big bite of was sabi, just said, oh, dear Lord,
and then turn bright red. But yeah, my daughter did
the same thing. She's like guacamole. Yes, and that is
on fire. But I mean it makes sense, right, I.
(11:36):
I kind of wish we did it the Japanese way,
And it seems like a better system than diting this
like big stack of sushi and dipping it in soy
sauce and hang it all fall apart. That's just so messy, definitely,
you know. I I did pick up a few tips
on the subject though, from Gero on No you know,
the world famous sushi chef was in the documentary that
Netflix seemed to suggest to everyone in the world. He
(11:57):
says that the best way to apply soy sauce after
the fact is by dipping a piece of pickle ginger
and then dabbing it across the top of the fish.
I feel like that's a sushi life, yeah, isn't it.
I mean, you know. He also has some solid advice
for people who want to eat a geary using chopsticks.
He suggests they think of the sushi as a portable shrine.
Place your chopsticks parallel to the tray as if they're
(12:18):
the shrines carrying poles, and lift up the sushi by
grasping it along its sides. If you grasp it through
its middle with your chopsticks, it will surely fall apart.
I love that he references shrines carrying poles, like everyone
knows that shrine should be carried with poles, right, exactly. Um,
But still that that's a great tip for Americans. So
(12:39):
what are you saying? We talked a little bit about
how America developed a taste for raw fish in the
first place. Yeah, And to help with that, let's call
up Trevor Courson. So he wrote an amazing book called
The Story of Sushi, and I'm pretty sure he can
tell us how it made the trip state side. Our
(13:01):
guest today is the author of a fascinating book called
the Story of Sushi, an unlikely saga of raw fish
and rice. Trevor Courson. Welcome to Part Time Genius. Thanks
for having me on. Trevor, this isn't the first book
you've written that was related to see Life. Your first book,
which got a ton of critical acclaim was the Secret
Life of Lobsters. So I'm curious what turned your interests
(13:22):
towards sushi and writing this book. I had gone to
Japan just kind of by accident when I was a
high school student on this summer scholarship that I just
happened to get, and it was I went and lived
with a homestake family, and so I had I always
had that experience. It was always issued in Japan. I
ended up going back later as a college student and
(13:42):
studying Japanese language and living in Japan for a while.
Um so uh. And the thing that had happened before
I went to Japan the first time this was and
so sushi was still very unusual at that time, and
my high school teacher said, oh, you're going to Japan
this summer the scholarship. The thing is you're gonna have
to not be able to eat raw fish. You don't
(14:03):
have to know how to eat sushi. And so there
was like one sushi restaurant in town, and my teacher
bought a box to takeout sushi, brought up to school
and made me eat it, like, sit down in the office,
try eating to prepare me for this, And I thought, wow,
here's the cuisine that is truly repulsive, and like, I
was horrible, How am I going to survive this experience?
(14:26):
But the funny thing that happened was when I got
to Japan and I was living in this home state
family and they took me out to their local sushi bar,
and I realized what the whole experience was at that
point that it was like this amazing, really fun social
experience where you didn't order, you sat at the bar
with a bunch of other people from the neighborhood, and
the sushi chef was like this friendly neighborhood bartender and
(14:48):
you just like started giving you these amazing things that
you didn't know what they were, and you sort of
explain a little bit about each one, and this kind
of series of small surprises that occurred, as you said,
at the sushi bar and interacted with the chef and everything,
and what what troubled me was like when I would
try to eat sushi back in the States after that,
it was never the same, Like I was never having
(15:08):
that experience that had made sushi so wonderful. So I
like decided to make it my mission after this lobster book,
you know, did so well, my publisher was like, well,
can you do anything else on sea food because this
was clearly resonating, and uh, it's like what about what
about sushi? And that's how the Sushi book get started.
And I tried to like try to educate American readers. Um,
(15:28):
you know what the Japanese sushi experience is actually, like
it's very very different, and the whole history of sushi
and the experience is very different from from what we
tend to think of in the US. Yeah, and we
touch a little on that in this episode. But I've
heard you talk about the fact that we what we
consider as valuable in sushi has changed over the years.
Can you talk a little bit about that. Yeah, this
is so fascinating. And I didn't really realize this either
(15:51):
until I started digging into the historical research. Um but
if you ask any you know, like traditional Japanese sushi
chef today, they'll tell you that like blue fin tuna
is the pinnacle of of authentic Japanese sushi, especially the
the belly cut to the toro, right, that's sort of
melt in your mouth and station. The weird thing is,
(16:12):
when I started looking into the history of this, the
if you went back a hundred years um in early
nineteen hundred, for example, sushi was very very different the
traditional Japanese sushi that they were eating at that time.
Tuna was considered a garbage fish. You would never eat tuna,
possibly avoid it. It was it was considered like very
(16:33):
low class and um, if you had to eat tuna,
they would like they would marinated in soy sauce or
buried in the ground, like do all these things to
like try to get rid of the flavor of And
at the time, what what actually was considered desirable sushi
ingredients were um, smaller fish that had lighter flesh like
(16:53):
the silvery or lighter flesh, fish that had more of
a like kind of a crunchy text you're almost to eat.
A lot of shellfish were considered very desirable. Flounder and
sea bream were considered like the pinnacle of fine sushi,
especially the kind of juwier parts of the flashood. It's
completely different that the culinary values have completely changed over
(17:16):
the past century, and has this changed the way you
think about sushi when you're in a restaurant and ordering
it for yourself. Yeah, I mean the thing is when
you sit down at the sushi bar, a lot of
chefs or you know, if we often we just order
what we're used to. We order the usual um suspects,
the tuna belly, the famine, the yellowtail, uh sweet feel.
(17:41):
And what I learned in my research is that none
of those is a traditional Japanese sushi ingredient. Uh. Those
are all recent inventions. And trying to understand this, I
realized that the blue thing tunam is it was an
invention of the Japanese UM Airlines in the nineteen seventies.
(18:04):
They were uh flying their planes full of Sony walkman's
over to the US and flying them back empty, and
they were trying to find something they could put in
the planes on the way back, and they got the idea, well,
maybe you know, there's some kind of like sea food
in North America that people will eat, and and it
turned out there wasn't Like they even looked into tuna,
(18:24):
and no one would eat. No one ate tuna like
maybe you'd open a can occasionally. But they were trying
to get a tuna as possibly an ingredient they could
fly back and sell in Japan, and no one was
eating it. And everybody thought the idea was ludicrous. So
it was in my my colleague Sasha Istenberg and journalists
to kind of exposed this story. It was a cargo
(18:45):
executive at Japan Airlines who who who like designed and
built the cryogenic freezer containers and who developed the market
that kind of turned blue con tuna into a global
sushi ingredient that they started marketing and selling. And that's
why we have it today, and that's why everybody believes
that the traditional chapane sushi ingredim but it's not at all.
(19:07):
And so once I realized this, I started asking this, well,
what what would you have? You know, what's the more
old fashioned other sushi ingredients besides tuna, And there's all
these other things that they know how to prepare and
serve that are so interesting to eat. So to answer
your question, I just don't eat blue intuna anymore at all.
In fact, I find my sushi eating experience has become
(19:29):
much more interesting as a result, because there's all these
other local um seasonal ingredients and smaller fish and shellfish
and weird things that are just much more fun and interesting.
And there's some ships who are starting to get back
to that now and it's really cool to see happening.
That's really that, that's really fascinating. You know, speaking of
traditional sushi, could you tell us the story behind the
California role and whether or not you can get them
(19:52):
in Japan. Yeah, the California role we kind of assuming
that it was. It was obviously because of the name
it invented specifically to um, you know, Americans, interesting meeting sushi.
That's sort of true. But the evolution of the California
was what kind of happened over time. It wasn't immediate,
(20:12):
and actually it started out as uh menu item for
actually Japanese businessmen and stuff in Los Angeles, So it
did originate in California, but it wasn't for American customers.
The problem was at that time, just building off the
tuna story, it was very hard to get batty tuna
(20:32):
in Los Angeles in the um you know, or the
seventies and eighties, when when sushi started to become more
popular there. Uh and so one of the sushi restaurants
in Little Tokyo and Los Angeles, because they didn't yet
have the ability to kind of fly these tuna fish
all over the world, they thought, well, how can we
(20:53):
kind of recreate that batty um tuna belly sensation, and
a realized that they California may not made a lot
of petty tuna, but they had a ton of avocados,
And so they started experimenting mixing avocado in with different
kinds of fish to see if they could create the
same sensation we would get when they ate petty tuna.
(21:14):
But and tried uh, I think shrimp and a couple
other things first, and finals finally somebody settled on crab
meat and avocado as being the best sort of fox
substitute for fortuna belly. So that was the original introduction
of avocado into sushi um. But the real innovation that
(21:35):
turned that created the California we roll we know today
wasn't until someone invented what we what is called noticed
the inside out roll. And this is the typical sushi
role that we see in America all over the place today. Um,
we don't even realize because it's so ubiquitous. But if
the rice is on the outside of the role like
(21:55):
a California role, that's actually not even at all part
of Japan. The sushi tradition that was a really key
American invention because apparently Americans at first found the idea
of eating seaweed paper. Somehow it turn off and seaweed
roles they were always made with the seaweed paper around
(22:16):
the outside. And actually the whole point of it was
that the seaweed paper, the nori was was wonderful to
eat that way because it was crunchy. So you have
this crunchy outside and the soft rights on the inside.
But that was the whole point. But Americans wouldn't eat
that because we were freaked out by seaweed paper, so
they flipped it inside out with the seaweed on the
inside where we couldn't see. It totally defeats the purpose
(22:37):
because now the seaweeds all soggy and wet and not
crunchy anymore. But it's got American team. So it was
a combination of bringing avocado into the mix and then
flipping the role inside out that ultimately resulted in the
California role. Oh that's really interesting, and I'm curious has
any of that American influence made its way back to
Japan and the way they make sushi now, right? Yeah, Yeah,
(22:57):
The other part of your question is that yes it has,
and um, when when I was researching this in Los Angeles. Um,
you'd have Japanese tourists coming over and getting all excited
to order, you know, um, all the different weird American
roles and Thanksgiving role and she steak role like so
(23:17):
now it's it's been. It's been actually so intriguing to
Japanese customers to have this American style sushi that it
has now been re imported to Japan and you'll find
all kinds of um, weird American style uh sushi roles
being sold in Japan now too. And um, they tend
to call it perhaps suplimistically creative sushi. It's like it's
(23:40):
I can say, sushi is the creative sushi uh. And
also weird kinds of sushi that we don't even have
in the US, um, you know, like corn and hamburger sushi.
And just like it's completely open season with all kinds
of weird things. Now, well, this has been fascinating and
I hope all of our listeners will check out your book,
The Story of Sushi un Likely, Saga of raw Fish
(24:01):
and Rice Trevor Course, And thanks so much for joining
us on part time genius. Great to be with you.
Thanks for having me. You're listening to part time genius,
(24:21):
and we're talking about the surprising history and little known
secrets that make up the sushi experience. Okay, Mango, So
we've already covered sushi's ancient origins and how it was
first brought to America during the nineteen fifties and sixties,
So now we should talk about some of the differences
between the sushi cultures of Japan and the US. Sure,
so we mentioned before the break that many Americans view
sushi eating as the solemn experience, like they're in some
(24:44):
kind of food temple and are about to take part
in a religious right or something. But what if I'm
during my research is that most of it is in
our heads and that people in Japan actually have this
much more relaxed approach to the sushi. For example, we
we have a lot of upscales sit down sushi restaurants
in the US, and we ru's menus with I don't
know twenty or thirty different roles and make our selections
(25:04):
and then we just wait for the food to be
brought to our tables. But in Japan, most sushi has
just served at a bar and the menu choices changed
based on what the chef has on hand. Well, so,
so sushi choices are actually more limited in Japan. I
wouldn't have guessed that. Yeah, So Japanese sushi bars don't
share that American expectation of variety. Instead, they concentrate on
keeping the quality super high for the few items they
(25:26):
do have. And part of the reason for that difference
is that the seafood in Japan is largely caught locally,
so for certain kind of fishes and in season, then
you won't find it on the menu. And compare that
to the U s where I think it's eighty five
percent of the seafood we has been imported, which means
more species are available year round, but also that all
the fish has been frozen at some point. Yeah, and
(25:48):
I think that quality is probably worth the trade off
over the variety, agreed, which is why Japan doesn't have
so many of those like catch all restaurants we find
in the US. So a sushi bar in Japan only
serves sushi, and if you want ramen or yaka tori,
then you'll have to go someplace else. Yeah, and I
can appreciate that that idea of that, Like we do
one thing here and we do it right. But but
let's talk a little bit about the atmosphere. Well, what's
(26:10):
that like in a in a place like that in
a sushi bar in Japan. Yeah, so again we have
this idea of the stoic, silent sushi chef who's, you know,
keenly focused on his work and won't interact with anyone
and can't be disturbed. But sushi chefs can be reserved
and they can be zen like at times. But the
ones in Japan often are more like, uh, like your
(26:30):
neighborhood bartender. So they're chatting with customers and making recommendations,
and they're interacting in this way that's actually part of
a sushi chef's training. So well, while there's a high
level of respect for the craft, most sushi chefs are
still totally approachable and friendly, which is nice to hear that.
It makes me wonder where we got some of these ideas.
I mean, did we just make up all this stuff
(26:51):
about sushi chefs being like deadly serious or how did
this come to be? Yeah? I mean I think part
of its things outsization, and part of it's like a
language barrier, right, people are behind the bar and and
aren't comfortable with English. I worked at a sushi restaurant
for a little bit, and the chefs there were big
sports fans, and so the only way they communicate with
me was with uh sports words. So they say things
(27:14):
like if they dropped something, they say fumble, or if
they need me, they'd call a time out. That's pretty great,
but you know, the language barrier must make it pretty
rough in a lot of cases. And that makes sense.
And you know, it also seems true that Americans aren't
too hung up on maintaining these Japanese sushi traditions. I mean,
if you need proof of our lack of reverence, look
no further than the sushi burrito, Yeah, or m the
(27:37):
sushi croissant, the sushi cheeseburger, dessert, sushi, deep fried sushi roll.
I mean, I'd tried deep fried sushi roll. I'll be
honest with you on that. In the list of sushi
on and on and yeah, I guess they are technically
combinations of sushi and other popular foods in the US,
but I don't know. I'm thinking the more fitting word
is probably abominations. And that's certainly what the Japanese Ministry
(27:59):
of Agriculture was say, and and the department has been
not pleased at all to see these ridiculous places that
we've taken Japan's beloved cuisine too, and so much so
that they recently launched a new program that will actually
certify whether Japanese restaurants outside the country are staying true
to the values of traditional Japanese cooking. I mean, they're
gonna have their work cut out for them. Oh no kidding.
(28:21):
I mean I was actually looking at this one article
and according to NPR, there over eighty nine thousand Japanese
restaurants outside of Japan, and about twenty two thousand of
those are right here in the US. So this new
program is going to review all these places, and and
what like, are they gonna find these Japanese restaurants or
shut them down? I mean, you know, it's not like
they have this international authority. So the program is completely voluntary,
(28:45):
and the certification is basically this badge of honor for
authentic Japanese restaurants, So it shows customers that this is
a place to experience traditional cuisine and not these cultural
mash ups like sushi burritos, and is one sushi chef
put it. Don't get me wrong. The sushi burrito is
a cool concept, and I wouldn't tell anyone not to
eat it, but I wouldn't say it's Japanese food. I
(29:06):
mean that that's strong a line there. Yeah, I mean,
like kim chi tacos are great, but spaghetti tacos aren't exactly.
But while we're on the subject of different sushi experiences,
do you know that Japanese people are actually better at
eating seaweed than we are. I mean, they definitely have
more experience. What don't mean they're better at it? Trash
talking this. There was the study publish in Nature and
(29:29):
and uh. It featured the work of these scientists who
were studying this marine bacteria that breaks down norri. It's
really good at breaking it down. And that's the kind
of seaweed that's most commonly found in sushi. And apparently
the enzymes that cause this decay are also produced by
bacteria that live inside some humans guts. So wait, so
they only live in Japanese guts or what? Yeah, that's right,
(29:50):
or at least they haven't been found in the guts
of North Americans. So you know, we have trillions of
bacteria living in our intestines, and they account for hundreds
of different species. But North Americans lack the one that
produces this seaweed eating enzyme. That's pretty crazy. So do
we know why that is? We're not sure, but there
are a few theories. So the main one is that
Japanese people, you know, a long time ago, swallowed this
(30:11):
enzyme along with some seaweed a while ago, and from
there the enzyme genes were transferred to the microbes living
in the person's gut and then handed down through the
family bloodline, and the genes might have been phased out
at some point along the way, except that Japanese people
kept eating seaweed heavy diets. So why I get rid
of something that aids in digestion. That's pretty amazing. You know.
I'm actually glad you brought this up because we've talked
(30:33):
a bit about history, We've talked a little bit about culture,
so I feel like we should take some time down
and check out more of the surprising science behind sushi
because there's some really interesting stuff there. Definitely, but let's
take a quick break first. Okay, Well, so let's get
(30:59):
scientific wish sushi component do you want to look at first? Well,
We've mentioned a few times now that mixing with savy
with soy sauce is a bad idea, so I kind
of want to break down why that is. But first
let's be clear about what was sabi is and what
it isn't. Because you know the spicy green lumps that
are served in American restaurants, the one that mentioned my
father in law eating, and you know, prepackaged in these
(31:20):
sushi trays, that's actually not was sabi. So real was
sabi is made from the grated stems of a plant
that's native to Japan, which means getting your hands on
it outside the country can actually be really expensive. So
I'd heard this, but I don't know the specifics. So
what's the stuff we've been eating. Well, most of the
wasabi here in the States, it's made from horse radish
and mustard powder plus a little food coloring to give
(31:42):
it that healthy green glow. And if you aren't being
charged separately for wasabi, it's most likely fake. That's interesting.
But aside from like the cred in the kitchen, is
there any advantage to using real with sabi? Well, it
depends on who you ask, but real was sabia is
said to have a more herbal taste than the fake
stuff that we're used to eating. And and because authentic
was sabi loses much of its flavor after only fifteen
(32:05):
minutes from being grated, the the sushi chef generally prepare
a new batch for every single order, so you know,
the real stuff has a much more fresh taste as well.
That's crazy it loses its flavor so quickly. But I'm
guessing neither kind should go in your soy sauce. No,
definitely not, so I hope you hear that, Tristan. But
you know, the reason really has more to do with
science than etiquette. So that pungent burning sensation that was
(32:27):
sabi causes in our nasal passages, that that's due to
a volatile chemical that it contains. Now, this chemical is
similar to mustard oil, so it actually turns up in
both real and fake was saby. And because with sabi's
heat comes from a chemical rather than an oil based
heat like chili peppers, for example, you know that that
burning sensation can be counteracted by food or water. So
(32:47):
if you think about it, when people mix with sabi
with water based soy sauce, they're really neutralizing that heat
and and killing most of that natural flavor in the process. Yeah,
it's really self defeating stuff. It actually reminds me of
something I read that when sushi chef's notice people adding
a ton of with sabi to their sushi, they immediately
switched to less desirable cuts of fish, you know, the
(33:09):
stuff the kitchen needs to unload. And the thining is
why waste all this premium fish on folks who are
only gonna drown it with savvy anyway? Yeah, that's you know,
it's it's a good point. And I mean, obviously, the
big draw of sushi is the phenomenal taste of the fish,
so you don't want to bury that in condiments and
and spoil the whole effect. And by the way, have
you ever stopped to think about how weird it is
(33:29):
that we love the taste of raw fish so much.
I mean, it's like raw chicken, raw pork. We don't
want any part of it, and obviously for good reasons helped,
but raw fish, I mean, it feels like people are
just obsessed with it. Yes, I was curious about that too,
and I ended up checking out the work of this biophysicist.
His name's Old morrits, and so, according to him, the
addicting taste of raw fish is actually thanks to gravity. Yeah,
(33:53):
in the ocean, gravity's effect is so weak due to
the buoyancy of water that most fish basically float weight
sleep for their whole lives. And the result is this
laid back lifestyle that the fish muscles are much softer
and smoother than the you know, the thick ropey muscle
fibers that terrestrial animals have, and and typically the more
work a muscle does, the tougher it grows. So I
(34:14):
guess while fish are floating around without a care in
the world, those of us on landers that were waging
this constant war against gravity just to stay upright, I
guess I didn't hadn't thought about it that way exactly.
And that's why the fatty belly of the tuna is
such a prize cut for sushi lovers. It gets the
least used, so it's always the softest, tastiest part of
the fish. But you know, if you think about the
(34:34):
muscle qualities of fish, they actually explain more than why
sushi tastes delicious. They also account for why sushi looks delicious.
And this was just fascinating to read up on. So,
the rainbow colors of the fish used in sushi are
mostly due to the amount of oxygen in their muscles.
So when a more active fish, say like a tuna,
you've got a protein called myoglobin that carries oxygen to
(34:56):
the muscles so they can make it into energy. But
my globin also contains iron, which happens to take on
that deep red color that you see in the fish.
That's pretty cool. But what about something like a flounder
though when I see those in restaurants there like, it
often looks more white when used in sushi. Yeah, So
that pearl white color and a fish, it indicates that
there were maybe more sedentary and that its muscles didn't
(35:16):
need that steady stream of oxygen in order to make energy.
So there are also lots of fish that have a
combination of muscles that are oxygen dependent and ones that aren't,
And as you might expect from those, those are fish
that wind up looking, you know, maybe a little more pink. So,
I mean, I guess that explains why salmon have that
pinkish orangish color. Well, good guess, I know you're trying
to be smart on that, but it did not exactly.
(35:38):
There are actually two things going on with salmon, and
that that's depending on whether they're wild or farm raised.
So in the wild, that trademark orange hue is derived
from the fish's diet, not its muscles. So salmon are
eating a lot of shrimp, a lot of krill, and
and these are are shellfish that contain a certain pigment
that's actually similar to the one in carrots that give
carrots that orange color. Well, well, what about raised SALMONA well,
(36:01):
believe it or not, those salmon are actually artificially colored.
And so salmon raised and captivity maybe they don't have
the luxury of eating shrimp dinners. So so the fish
farmers are actually adding a pigment in order to give
them that salmon color that you see. And it's it's
not something that the farmers are actually all that excited
to do, not just because they you know, they don't
want to be adding something artificial, but also because it's
(36:23):
expensive to do. I mean that they say that it
costs as much as of their feed bill to add
this pigment. That's crazy. But the public expects to see
this rosy, pink and orange salmon and studies show that
this is true. I mean that they're willing to pay
more for it. So, according to this market research that
I was looking at, American consumers will pay as much
as a dollar per pound more for that darker colored
(36:47):
salmon that you see out there. I know I feel
the same way like when I see eggs. I know,
brown eggs aren't better for you than white eggs, but
I still like the field and more. But obviously that's
a lot of money to leave on the table or
something as trivial as color. That's true. But no matter
what you think about dying fish pink, these newer methods
are definitely a whole lot better than the old industry standard.
(37:09):
I don't know if you've read about this before, but
they used to slice the fish open and then gas
it with carbon monoxide in order to change It's like,
I swear, that is a real thing. It's gross. Yeah,
I mean, I take the pigment compounds over then. I kidding.
But we've given fishing to do so I want to
(37:29):
circle back to the science of sushi's other star, and
that's the rice, because it's really as important as fresh
quality fishes. It's the rice that makes or breaks a
piece of sushi. And that's why sushi chefs are is
so meticulous about which rice they use and how they
cook it. All. Right, so what makes for good sushi rice? Well,
most Japanese sushi chefs have they their own go to grains,
(37:50):
which are sometimes the ones grown in their own hometowns.
But the real secret sushi rice is to find a
short grain rice that can absorb a lot of water
without cracking. And you have to see the the rice
takes in water as it cooks, but if the grains
absorbed too much, they'll actually burst open. And so what
does that That like throws off the texture or something? Yeah,
(38:10):
that's right, but it's not the cracks themselves that are
the problem. The real issue is that every grain of
rice contains a bit of starch inside, so when it
cracks during the cooking, the starch can leak out and
that turns your rice into a mushy, sticky mess. And
with sushi, you you definitely want to feel the texture
of each grain as well as the air between them.
So to sidestuff that problem, a good sushi chef will
(38:31):
actually south their grains ahead of time and check for
cracks before using each piece of rice. I feel like
sometimes I'm not tasting the right way because I can't
say I've ever felt like I was tasting each grain
of rice and the air and between the grains of rice. Well,
I mean that portable shrine analogy makes a lot more say, yes,
I get it, I understand it now, But I mean, actually,
think about all this. It is amazing to see how
(38:53):
much thought and care goes into crafting even you know,
like a single piece of sushi. And I know the
rigor of preparing or even consuming sushi. It it can feel,
you know, daunting or uninviting to someone who just wants
to grab a bite to eat. But I do hope
we've shown today that there's a real elegance and a
logic to each in every sushi custom. And the end
(39:13):
goal isn't to make you feel frustrated or uncultured, but
really to give you one of the best food experiences
that you could have. Yeah, and and speaking of elegance
and logic, we should probably get started on one of
our own customs, unless, of course, you're threatened by its rigor.
If you're talking about the fact off mango, I'm pretty
sure I can handle it. I'm even willing to go
first here. I've got a good one here. So it
(39:44):
says if you want to go to the oldest and
biggest fish market in the world, you'll head to Sukiji
Fish Market in Tokyo. Now, one of the coolest things
I saw about this. This is their big tuna auction
that happens regularly and the sushi stets go there to
bid on bluefin. The auction starts at three in the mornings.
You'll need to get there little bit after midnight to
guarantee a seed, and then you can watch sushi chefs
pay some seriously big bucks. I was looking at the
(40:06):
numbers on this and the most ever paid for a
blue fin at auction there was one point eight million
dollars for a single four eighty nine pound fish. Is
that not the same I've never paid that much for
a fish. I haven't even been to a fish auction.
But it's being a blue fin. It might be a
hot ticket item now, but fisherman actually used to avoid it,
(40:29):
and that's because it's a really strong fish and it
would tear up the fishing nets. But this all changed
in the fifties because nylon nets came along and it
became an easier to catch. But you know, sadly that's
resulted in over fishing. Yeah, and that's definitely a very
big problem. All right. Now, we talked earlier about the
Tokyo restaurant suki Yobashi Jiro that was made famous by
the documentary Zero Dreams of Sushi, and it's often cited
(40:52):
as the best sushi restaurant in the world. So I
was looking at how you could possibly get reservations, and
it's definitely not easy. First of all, you can only
call on the very first day of the month. In
order to make reservations. You've got to be prepared to
speak Japanese and leave a Japanese phone number behind just
so you can hope to score a reservation. So do
all those things, and it's a possibility. But you know, interestingly,
(41:13):
there's no menu at the restaurant. It's just a twenty
course meal made up of whatever Gero's in the mood
to serve that day. And it's actually surprisingly quick meal.
They expect that each piece of sushi is going to
be eaten as soon as it's presented, so so really
it can take only like thirty minutes or so to
eat this three hundred dollar meal. That's amazing. Do you
(41:34):
know that there was a two thousand seventeen study that
showed that nearly half of all the fish from well
respected sushi places in l A were mislabeled. Yeah. So
the study actually looked at more than three fifty samples
of ten fish and this was across twenty six really
good restaurants, and what they found was that sent were fake.
Yeah most of the time fish like red snapper or
(41:55):
yellow fin, we're actually a fish like flounder. Wow. Alright. Well,
last year Seamless that the data on sushi orders across
several major cities around the country, and it was kind
of interesting to see that, you know, certain types of
sushi are much more popular in certain cities than others.
I was taking a look at this. In Boston, it's
eight times more likely that people order spicy tuner rolls
(42:15):
than in other markets. Now, if you want a crunchy,
spicy tuner roll, then you need to head to Denver
if you want to be in what the popular pack there.
In Miami there's seven times more likely to go for
a salmon temporal role than in other cities. Of course,
in Philly, which I know you're close to a deep
fried tuna and salmon is the popular one there. And
then in DC, the spicy crunch shrimp roll is thirty
(42:38):
five times more likely to be ordered there than in
other markets. Why do they like that one so much?
Times So, it seems like when we talk about sushi
or other really fresh foods, people often talk about freezing
those foods is a terrible thing. But this is something
I learned in our research. Did you know that FDA
regulations mandate that raw fish has to be frozen for
a specified period of time to work can be served.
(43:01):
I mean it's to kill parasites, and it applies no
matter how fresh the fish maybe. And in Japan, the
real sushi masters know how to look for parasites or
other problems with the fish so they can still serve
the fish without freezing it. So every piece of fish
that we eat in a restaurant here in the States,
sushi or not, has to be frozen at some point before. Wow,
I didn't know that. Actually this means that sushi is
(43:22):
pretty much just like all those frozen fish sticks I
used to eat as a kid, and that makes me
really happy. So I think for that I'm going to
give you today's fact Off trophy. Congratulations Mango. Thank you
so much, and if we forgot any great sushi facts,
please don't hesitate to let us know. You can always
email us where at part Time Genius at how stuff
Works dot com, or you can call us on seven
(43:43):
fact Hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius, or
you can find us on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you
so much for listening, round, Thanks again for listening. Part
(44:04):
Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and
wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the
important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil
does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song
and does the MIXI MIXI sound thing. Jerry Rowland does
the exact producer thing. Gave Bluesier is our lead researcher,
with support from the research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff Cook gets the
(44:26):
show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like
what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, and if you
really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
a good review for us do we forget Jason? Jason
who
Guess what will what's that mango? So sushi's obviously everywhere now,
but do you remember when we were kids how exotic
it was In first grade, I've done this report on Tokyo,
and I remember the idea of eating raw fish just
seeming like so unimaginable to me. But that same year,
one of my friends got up in front of the
class and he told everyone he'd been to Japan and
he'd actually tried sushi and he claimed it was delicious.
(00:22):
I guess everybody else thought that was pretty discussed. Yeah,
no one believed to him, like they thought it was
gross and you know, it's raw fish. So being first grader,
as everyone was yelling like yuck and gross and just
shaking their heads in disbelief. And then like this, one
girl raised her hand and asked him, but what sushi
actually tastes like? He just smiled and said bubba. So
for years I actually thought like, maybe sushi does tasting
(00:44):
bubble gum. But of course now I do know what
it tastes like, and sushi's everywhere. But it made us
wonder how did we start eating these delicious fish rolls
in the first place, and how did it come to America,
and are you really supposed to be eating sushi with
her hands instead of your chopsticks. Let's dive in. Hey
(01:19):
their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
man guest Ticketer and on the other side of the
soundproof glass, just chowing down on a spicy tune or all.
Look at the thing, it's just drenched in soy sauce.
That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Tristan, why are
you using the sport? Oh man, he's got the wassabi
mix in there too. All these problems, but that actually
(01:39):
brings us to what today's episode is all about, and
that's an intervention for Tristan. Yeah, actually, I'm kidding, all right.
So there's a lot of common misconceptions about sushi out there,
and not just about how to eat it, but how
it's made, where it comes from, and even what's in it.
So on today's show, we're gonna take a good hard
look at what we think we know about sushi and
see if we can set the records right on one
(02:00):
of America's most popular and misunderstood finger foods. Yeah, well,
why don't we start right there, because that's amazing to
be Sushi is actually a finger food, and that's actually
the preferred way to eat it because sushi chefs like
to loosely pack their sushi. That way you can fall
a part in your mouth and the flavors can mingle better.
The problem is so many Americans are hung up on
eating sushi with chopsticks that chefs in the US actually
(02:22):
packed their sushi tightly, and that's how it will hold
together when grab with the sticks. It seems like such
a small thing, but a lot of people actually shy
away from sushi because they think you have to use
chopsticks to eat it. Really still, so Americans still don't
like chopsticks. I kind of felt like we've gotten over
that by this point. Yeah, apparently not so. I was
looking at this market research from you gov and they
(02:42):
conducted the survey on chopstick proficiency. This was back in
two thousand fourteen, and I found that seventies seven percent
of Americans preferred to use a knife and fork over
chop sticks when they eat Asian food. And most of
that reason is that Americans are just not good with chopsticks.
The survey claimed that thirty four percent of the country
rates is proficiency with chopsticks as fair or better, while
(03:05):
related as a not very good or terrible. Wow. And
so what about the other quarter of the country. They
haven't even tried chop sticks, explains it. The good news
for them is that counter to most people is thinking
it's perfectly proper to eat most kinds of sushi with
your fingers, and the only exception is sashimi. You know,
sushi means those thinly sliced pieces of fresh, rassy food
(03:26):
and those are served without rice. And because rassy food
can be a little slippery to handle with your hands,
using chop sticks is the way to go for those.
But maki rules or nagiri, you can use either chopsticks
or your fingers for those. All right, So we're breaking
down the barriers on today's show. And actually, I feel
like another big deterrent for people who don't eat sushi
or are some of the words that you just mentioned,
(03:47):
you know, the proper terms for different kinds of sushi,
And obviously these are Japanese words that anybody can look up.
But you know, for people that just want to eat
lunch and not have to learn a new language while
doing it, that that unknown vocabulary can actually be a
little bit in intimidating. Yeah, but if you know the definitions,
it isn't intimitting at all. So like the words sushii
literally means body cuts, so the whole dishes right there
(04:09):
in its name, right, And some of the other terms
are less literal, but they still give these details that
can help you distinguish between the different kinds of sushi.
So taking a geary for example, it's the kind of
sushi that consists of a small amount of rice with
a slice of raw fish on top. And the word
geary actually translates to grip or grasp, so again, in
a way, that's the whole dish, right, the slice of
(04:31):
fish grips the rice mount. And it's the same with
another kind of sushi, the maki roll. And this is
what most Americans picture when they think of sushi. You know,
it's the colorful circles of fish and veggies, and that's
surrounded by sushi rice and then this outer layer of
seaweed and the small pieces are cut from this longer
cylindrical rolls that are formed using I'm sure you've seen
(04:51):
it for those like woven bamboo mats. There's a called
maki su and you can probably guess the mat is
where the maki gets its name. All right, So there
you go, the most common types of sushi explained. You've
got body cuts, gripping fish, and matt rolls and actually
saying it out loud I can. Yeah, Yeah, it's probably
best that we stick with the Japanese words. Yeah, but
(05:13):
you know, you know what, I just realized we're only
a few minutes into this discussion and we've already messed
us off. What do you mean by that? Well, we've
been talking about sashimi as if it's a kind of sushi,
But like I mentioned earlier, sushini doesn't actually include rice,
so by definition it can't be sushi. Oh wow, you're right.
But at least the mistake gives us a chance to
talk about what's maybe the biggest misconception about sushi, and
(05:34):
that's that the word itself means raw fish. I mean,
it's it's it's an easy mistake to make because we
think of raw fishes like the defining component of the cuisine.
But an actuality, sushi is all about the rice, and
that's what the word really refers to it's that sour
tasting rice. Yeah, and if you look at the history,
you can actually see why rice deserves the top billing.
This is another thing most people don't know, but the
(05:56):
earliest form of sushi actually comes from China and not Japan.
It was later named narazushi, and it started as a
form of food preservation back in the third or fourth
century BC. It's different from the fresh fish we know today.
Narzushi was actually made by packing a wooden barrel with
all these layers of raw and salted fish and and
then cooked rice and then they'd set this heavy weight
(06:16):
on top and you'd let the whole thing for meant
for up to a year, right, And this work just
like with any other fermentation. You've got friendly bacteria that
fed on a substance. In this case it was starch
and the rice, and then it produced lactic acid in turn,
and the resulting acid is what helped preserve the fish
by slowing the growth of harmful bacteria you know that
would otherwise cause it to rot. And the technique is
(06:38):
thought to have first been used by farmers who lived
along the Makong River in Southeast Asia. So during the
rainy months, the river would sometimes flood and the water
would wash tons of carp into these nearby rice paddies,
and they didn't want this carp to go to waste,
and so the farmers came up with a new way
to store the fish until they were needed. I mean,
it's pretty ingenious. But what's funny to me about this
(06:59):
proto sushi or early sushi, is that nobody actually ate
the rice, and despite the crucial role it played in
the fermentation process, the rice was just tossed away afterwards,
and it was only the fish that was eaten. I mean,
we are talking about super sour year old rice. I
can't exactly blame them for not eating it. Yeah, but
the fish wasn't in his prime either. So I actually
(07:19):
asked gave what it tasted like, and he was saying,
after a year in the barrel, it would morph into
this pungent, gelatinous, almost cheese like. I mean, it couldn't
have been any better tasting than all that sur rice.
That is disgusting, but you know, if it makes you
feel any better. The Japanese did start eating both the
fermaute fish and the rice sometime after sushi made its
(07:41):
way to Japan, and this was I think around the
ninth century, so Buddhism was spreading throughout the country at
the time, and fermitte sushi helped meat that growing desire
for protein source. You know that that would fit into
their meatless diet, even if it did taste pretty sour.
I guess yeah. So I've read that the sour taste
was actually a plus for the Japanese at that time
because the rice vinegar industry had just taken off. This
(08:02):
was in the thirteenth century, and people actually came to
appreciate a little sour flavor in their cuisine because vinegar
was so popular in the markets. In fact, when Cooke's
found a faster way to for men cure all that
fish without the use of rice, Japanese started adding vinegar
to their sushi rice just so wouldn't lose that sour taste,
all right. So, so by this point we've got non
fer minute rice seasoned with vinegar, just like the kind
(08:23):
used in sushi today. So what about the fish that
when does it go from being pickled to being raw
like we're used to it now. So raw fish sushi
didn't actually become the norm until after refrigeration became such
a big thing in the twentieth century, but it did
start to crop up in some places during the eighteen hundreds.
So at that time, Tokyo or Edo as it was
(08:43):
called back then, was fostering the next generation of sushi.
And all these mobile food stalls that have begun to
crowd up in the streets, and this one man, his
name was Hanaya Yohi, he set himself apart from the
crowd by offering what's often considered the first example of
modern nagari sushi. So Yo has a great story. He
opened his stall near bridge in Tokyo that crossed the
Sumida River, and not only was that area highly traffic,
(09:07):
but it was easy access to all this fresh fish.
And in fact, the fish Yohai served was so fresh
that there was no need for men or cook it.
All you have to do was cut into slices and
hand pressed them onto mounds of vinegared rice, and the
process took minutes rather than the hours of days that
his competitors were, you know, spending curing fish. The Japanese
public fell immediately in love with it, and they loved
(09:28):
the fresh taste, but they also loved the fast prep time,
and his business just exploded, and all these years later,
it's still the most popular kind in Japan. I think
what's most surprising to me about the story is hearing
that sushi was a common street food in those early days. Like,
we have this idea in the US of sushi being
this really fancy, upscale cuisine, all these traditions and rules
(09:48):
that have to be observed. It's a kind of stigma
that can make sushi feel inaccessible to some people. So
it's it's actually pretty cool to hear about its humble origins. Yeah,
the story is helpful in making it more approachable, but
let's be honest, the big reason that people view sushi
is such a posh food is the price. I mean,
you can definitely find roles with imitation crab another kind
(10:09):
of filler everywhere from grocery stores to gas stations, airports,
but anything with actual sushi grade sushi is gonna cost you.
But it's definitely true, and I know that's the case
even in Japan, where rising costs have made sushi much
more of a special occasion food than that maybe it
once was. Yeah, I don't think the average Japanese citizens
would dispute that quality sushi is pricy and worth the price,
(10:30):
But the bigger sticking point for them would actually be
what Americans due to a food that costs so much.
Because I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we don't
tend to respect sushi the way it ought to be.
I saw you given that side, I go answer Tristan
that I don't want to pick on him anymore, but
I will mention as a general public service announcement that
you're you're really only supposed to use a tiny bit
of soy sauce with your sushi, you know, so you
(10:52):
don't drown out the other flavors. Most Japanese sushi chefs
actually brush a little bit of their own homemade sauce
right onto each piece of fish before served, And the
same thing happens with with sabi, you know, when when needed,
chefs will include some fresh was sabi between the fish
and the rice. Of course, none of this really happens
in the US, because chefs know that American sushi eaters
like to add those condiments themselves, you know, often to
(11:15):
access that. I've told you the story about my father
in law when we were at a restaurant one time
years ago, and he just had this brain lapse and
for some reason was thinking that it was avocado. Took
a big bite of was sabi, just said, oh, dear Lord,
and then turn bright red. But yeah, my daughter did
the same thing. She's like guacamole. Yes, and that is
on fire. But I mean it makes sense, right, I.
(11:36):
I kind of wish we did it the Japanese way,
And it seems like a better system than diting this
like big stack of sushi and dipping it in soy
sauce and hang it all fall apart. That's just so messy, definitely,
you know. I I did pick up a few tips
on the subject though, from Gero on No you know,
the world famous sushi chef was in the documentary that
Netflix seemed to suggest to everyone in the world. He
(11:57):
says that the best way to apply soy sauce after
the fact is by dipping a piece of pickle ginger
and then dabbing it across the top of the fish.
I feel like that's a sushi life, yeah, isn't it.
I mean, you know. He also has some solid advice
for people who want to eat a geary using chopsticks.
He suggests they think of the sushi as a portable shrine.
Place your chopsticks parallel to the tray as if they're
(12:18):
the shrines carrying poles, and lift up the sushi by
grasping it along its sides. If you grasp it through
its middle with your chopsticks, it will surely fall apart.
I love that he references shrines carrying poles, like everyone
knows that shrine should be carried with poles, right, exactly. Um,
But still that that's a great tip for Americans. So
(12:39):
what are you saying? We talked a little bit about
how America developed a taste for raw fish in the
first place. Yeah, And to help with that, let's call
up Trevor Courson. So he wrote an amazing book called
The Story of Sushi, and I'm pretty sure he can
tell us how it made the trip state side. Our
(13:01):
guest today is the author of a fascinating book called
the Story of Sushi, an unlikely saga of raw fish
and rice. Trevor Courson. Welcome to Part Time Genius. Thanks
for having me on. Trevor, this isn't the first book
you've written that was related to see Life. Your first book,
which got a ton of critical acclaim was the Secret
Life of Lobsters. So I'm curious what turned your interests
(13:22):
towards sushi and writing this book. I had gone to
Japan just kind of by accident when I was a
high school student on this summer scholarship that I just
happened to get, and it was I went and lived
with a homestake family, and so I had I always
had that experience. It was always issued in Japan. I
ended up going back later as a college student and
(13:42):
studying Japanese language and living in Japan for a while.
Um so uh. And the thing that had happened before
I went to Japan the first time this was and
so sushi was still very unusual at that time, and
my high school teacher said, oh, you're going to Japan
this summer the scholarship. The thing is you're gonna have
to not be able to eat raw fish. You don't
(14:03):
have to know how to eat sushi. And so there
was like one sushi restaurant in town, and my teacher
bought a box to takeout sushi, brought up to school
and made me eat it, like, sit down in the office,
try eating to prepare me for this, And I thought, wow,
here's the cuisine that is truly repulsive, and like, I
was horrible, How am I going to survive this experience?
(14:26):
But the funny thing that happened was when I got
to Japan and I was living in this home state
family and they took me out to their local sushi bar,
and I realized what the whole experience was at that
point that it was like this amazing, really fun social
experience where you didn't order, you sat at the bar
with a bunch of other people from the neighborhood, and
the sushi chef was like this friendly neighborhood bartender and
(14:48):
you just like started giving you these amazing things that
you didn't know what they were, and you sort of
explain a little bit about each one, and this kind
of series of small surprises that occurred, as you said,
at the sushi bar and interacted with the chef and everything,
and what what troubled me was like when I would
try to eat sushi back in the States after that,
it was never the same, Like I was never having
(15:08):
that experience that had made sushi so wonderful. So I
like decided to make it my mission after this lobster book,
you know, did so well, my publisher was like, well,
can you do anything else on sea food because this
was clearly resonating, and uh, it's like what about what
about sushi? And that's how the Sushi book get started.
And I tried to like try to educate American readers. Um,
(15:28):
you know what the Japanese sushi experience is actually, like
it's very very different, and the whole history of sushi
and the experience is very different from from what we
tend to think of in the US. Yeah, and we
touch a little on that in this episode. But I've
heard you talk about the fact that we what we
consider as valuable in sushi has changed over the years.
Can you talk a little bit about that. Yeah, this
is so fascinating. And I didn't really realize this either
(15:51):
until I started digging into the historical research. Um but
if you ask any you know, like traditional Japanese sushi
chef today, they'll tell you that like blue fin tuna
is the pinnacle of of authentic Japanese sushi, especially the
the belly cut to the toro, right, that's sort of
melt in your mouth and station. The weird thing is,
(16:12):
when I started looking into the history of this, the
if you went back a hundred years um in early
nineteen hundred, for example, sushi was very very different the
traditional Japanese sushi that they were eating at that time.
Tuna was considered a garbage fish. You would never eat tuna,
possibly avoid it. It was it was considered like very
(16:33):
low class and um, if you had to eat tuna,
they would like they would marinated in soy sauce or
buried in the ground, like do all these things to
like try to get rid of the flavor of And
at the time, what what actually was considered desirable sushi
ingredients were um, smaller fish that had lighter flesh like
(16:53):
the silvery or lighter flesh, fish that had more of
a like kind of a crunchy text you're almost to eat.
A lot of shellfish were considered very desirable. Flounder and
sea bream were considered like the pinnacle of fine sushi,
especially the kind of juwier parts of the flashood. It's
completely different that the culinary values have completely changed over
(17:16):
the past century, and has this changed the way you
think about sushi when you're in a restaurant and ordering
it for yourself. Yeah, I mean the thing is when
you sit down at the sushi bar, a lot of
chefs or you know, if we often we just order
what we're used to. We order the usual um suspects,
the tuna belly, the famine, the yellowtail, uh sweet feel.
(17:41):
And what I learned in my research is that none
of those is a traditional Japanese sushi ingredient. Uh. Those
are all recent inventions. And trying to understand this, I
realized that the blue thing tunam is it was an
invention of the Japanese UM Airlines in the nineteen seventies.
(18:04):
They were uh flying their planes full of Sony walkman's
over to the US and flying them back empty, and
they were trying to find something they could put in
the planes on the way back, and they got the idea, well,
maybe you know, there's some kind of like sea food
in North America that people will eat, and and it
turned out there wasn't Like they even looked into tuna,
(18:24):
and no one would eat. No one ate tuna like
maybe you'd open a can occasionally. But they were trying
to get a tuna as possibly an ingredient they could
fly back and sell in Japan, and no one was
eating it. And everybody thought the idea was ludicrous. So
it was in my my colleague Sasha Istenberg and journalists
to kind of exposed this story. It was a cargo
(18:45):
executive at Japan Airlines who who who like designed and
built the cryogenic freezer containers and who developed the market
that kind of turned blue con tuna into a global
sushi ingredient that they started marketing and selling. And that's
why we have it today, and that's why everybody believes
that the traditional chapane sushi ingredim but it's not at all.
(19:07):
And so once I realized this, I started asking this, well,
what what would you have? You know, what's the more
old fashioned other sushi ingredients besides tuna, And there's all
these other things that they know how to prepare and
serve that are so interesting to eat. So to answer
your question, I just don't eat blue intuna anymore at all.
In fact, I find my sushi eating experience has become
(19:29):
much more interesting as a result, because there's all these
other local um seasonal ingredients and smaller fish and shellfish
and weird things that are just much more fun and interesting.
And there's some ships who are starting to get back
to that now and it's really cool to see happening.
That's really that, that's really fascinating. You know, speaking of
traditional sushi, could you tell us the story behind the
California role and whether or not you can get them
(19:52):
in Japan. Yeah, the California role we kind of assuming
that it was. It was obviously because of the name
it invented specifically to um, you know, Americans, interesting meeting sushi.
That's sort of true. But the evolution of the California
was what kind of happened over time. It wasn't immediate,
(20:12):
and actually it started out as uh menu item for
actually Japanese businessmen and stuff in Los Angeles, So it
did originate in California, but it wasn't for American customers.
The problem was at that time, just building off the
tuna story, it was very hard to get batty tuna
(20:32):
in Los Angeles in the um you know, or the
seventies and eighties, when when sushi started to become more
popular there. Uh and so one of the sushi restaurants
in Little Tokyo and Los Angeles, because they didn't yet
have the ability to kind of fly these tuna fish
all over the world, they thought, well, how can we
(20:53):
kind of recreate that batty um tuna belly sensation, and
a realized that they California may not made a lot
of petty tuna, but they had a ton of avocados,
And so they started experimenting mixing avocado in with different
kinds of fish to see if they could create the
same sensation we would get when they ate petty tuna.
(21:14):
But and tried uh, I think shrimp and a couple
other things first, and finals finally somebody settled on crab
meat and avocado as being the best sort of fox
substitute for fortuna belly. So that was the original introduction
of avocado into sushi um. But the real innovation that
(21:35):
turned that created the California we roll we know today
wasn't until someone invented what we what is called noticed
the inside out roll. And this is the typical sushi
role that we see in America all over the place today. Um,
we don't even realize because it's so ubiquitous. But if
the rice is on the outside of the role like
(21:55):
a California role, that's actually not even at all part
of Japan. The sushi tradition that was a really key
American invention because apparently Americans at first found the idea
of eating seaweed paper. Somehow it turn off and seaweed
roles they were always made with the seaweed paper around
(22:16):
the outside. And actually the whole point of it was
that the seaweed paper, the nori was was wonderful to
eat that way because it was crunchy. So you have
this crunchy outside and the soft rights on the inside.
But that was the whole point. But Americans wouldn't eat
that because we were freaked out by seaweed paper, so
they flipped it inside out with the seaweed on the
inside where we couldn't see. It totally defeats the purpose
(22:37):
because now the seaweeds all soggy and wet and not
crunchy anymore. But it's got American team. So it was
a combination of bringing avocado into the mix and then
flipping the role inside out that ultimately resulted in the
California role. Oh that's really interesting, and I'm curious has
any of that American influence made its way back to
Japan and the way they make sushi now, right? Yeah, Yeah,
(22:57):
The other part of your question is that yes it has,
and um, when when I was researching this in Los Angeles. Um,
you'd have Japanese tourists coming over and getting all excited
to order, you know, um, all the different weird American
roles and Thanksgiving role and she steak role like so
(23:17):
now it's it's been. It's been actually so intriguing to
Japanese customers to have this American style sushi that it
has now been re imported to Japan and you'll find
all kinds of um, weird American style uh sushi roles
being sold in Japan now too. And um, they tend
to call it perhaps suplimistically creative sushi. It's like it's
(23:40):
I can say, sushi is the creative sushi uh. And
also weird kinds of sushi that we don't even have
in the US, um, you know, like corn and hamburger sushi.
And just like it's completely open season with all kinds
of weird things. Now, well, this has been fascinating and
I hope all of our listeners will check out your book,
The Story of Sushi un Likely, Saga of raw Fish
(24:01):
and Rice Trevor Course, And thanks so much for joining
us on part time genius. Great to be with you.
Thanks for having me. You're listening to part time genius,
(24:21):
and we're talking about the surprising history and little known
secrets that make up the sushi experience. Okay, Mango, So
we've already covered sushi's ancient origins and how it was
first brought to America during the nineteen fifties and sixties,
So now we should talk about some of the differences
between the sushi cultures of Japan and the US. Sure,
so we mentioned before the break that many Americans view
sushi eating as the solemn experience, like they're in some
(24:44):
kind of food temple and are about to take part
in a religious right or something. But what if I'm
during my research is that most of it is in
our heads and that people in Japan actually have this
much more relaxed approach to the sushi. For example, we
we have a lot of upscales sit down sushi restaurants
in the US, and we ru's menus with I don't
know twenty or thirty different roles and make our selections
(25:04):
and then we just wait for the food to be
brought to our tables. But in Japan, most sushi has
just served at a bar and the menu choices changed
based on what the chef has on hand. Well, so,
so sushi choices are actually more limited in Japan. I
wouldn't have guessed that. Yeah, So Japanese sushi bars don't
share that American expectation of variety. Instead, they concentrate on
keeping the quality super high for the few items they
(25:26):
do have. And part of the reason for that difference
is that the seafood in Japan is largely caught locally,
so for certain kind of fishes and in season, then
you won't find it on the menu. And compare that
to the U s where I think it's eighty five
percent of the seafood we has been imported, which means
more species are available year round, but also that all
the fish has been frozen at some point. Yeah, and
(25:48):
I think that quality is probably worth the trade off
over the variety, agreed, which is why Japan doesn't have
so many of those like catch all restaurants we find
in the US. So a sushi bar in Japan only
serves sushi, and if you want ramen or yaka tori,
then you'll have to go someplace else. Yeah, and I
can appreciate that that idea of that, Like we do
one thing here and we do it right. But but
let's talk a little bit about the atmosphere. Well, what's
(26:10):
that like in a in a place like that in
a sushi bar in Japan. Yeah, so again we have
this idea of the stoic, silent sushi chef who's, you know,
keenly focused on his work and won't interact with anyone
and can't be disturbed. But sushi chefs can be reserved
and they can be zen like at times. But the
ones in Japan often are more like, uh, like your
(26:30):
neighborhood bartender. So they're chatting with customers and making recommendations,
and they're interacting in this way that's actually part of
a sushi chef's training. So well, while there's a high
level of respect for the craft, most sushi chefs are
still totally approachable and friendly, which is nice to hear that.
It makes me wonder where we got some of these ideas.
I mean, did we just make up all this stuff
(26:51):
about sushi chefs being like deadly serious or how did
this come to be? Yeah? I mean I think part
of its things outsization, and part of it's like a
language barrier, right, people are behind the bar and and
aren't comfortable with English. I worked at a sushi restaurant
for a little bit, and the chefs there were big
sports fans, and so the only way they communicate with
me was with uh sports words. So they say things
(27:14):
like if they dropped something, they say fumble, or if
they need me, they'd call a time out. That's pretty great,
but you know, the language barrier must make it pretty
rough in a lot of cases. And that makes sense.
And you know, it also seems true that Americans aren't
too hung up on maintaining these Japanese sushi traditions. I mean,
if you need proof of our lack of reverence, look
no further than the sushi burrito, Yeah, or m the
(27:37):
sushi croissant, the sushi cheeseburger, dessert, sushi, deep fried sushi roll.
I mean, I'd tried deep fried sushi roll. I'll be
honest with you on that. In the list of sushi
on and on and yeah, I guess they are technically
combinations of sushi and other popular foods in the US,
but I don't know. I'm thinking the more fitting word
is probably abominations. And that's certainly what the Japanese Ministry
(27:59):
of Agriculture was say, and and the department has been
not pleased at all to see these ridiculous places that
we've taken Japan's beloved cuisine too, and so much so
that they recently launched a new program that will actually
certify whether Japanese restaurants outside the country are staying true
to the values of traditional Japanese cooking. I mean, they're
gonna have their work cut out for them. Oh no kidding.
(28:21):
I mean I was actually looking at this one article
and according to NPR, there over eighty nine thousand Japanese
restaurants outside of Japan, and about twenty two thousand of
those are right here in the US. So this new
program is going to review all these places, and and
what like, are they gonna find these Japanese restaurants or
shut them down? I mean, you know, it's not like
they have this international authority. So the program is completely voluntary,
(28:45):
and the certification is basically this badge of honor for
authentic Japanese restaurants, So it shows customers that this is
a place to experience traditional cuisine and not these cultural
mash ups like sushi burritos, and is one sushi chef
put it. Don't get me wrong. The sushi burrito is
a cool concept, and I wouldn't tell anyone not to
eat it, but I wouldn't say it's Japanese food. I
(29:06):
mean that that's strong a line there. Yeah, I mean,
like kim chi tacos are great, but spaghetti tacos aren't exactly.
But while we're on the subject of different sushi experiences,
do you know that Japanese people are actually better at
eating seaweed than we are. I mean, they definitely have
more experience. What don't mean they're better at it? Trash
talking this. There was the study publish in Nature and
(29:29):
and uh. It featured the work of these scientists who
were studying this marine bacteria that breaks down norri. It's
really good at breaking it down. And that's the kind
of seaweed that's most commonly found in sushi. And apparently
the enzymes that cause this decay are also produced by
bacteria that live inside some humans guts. So wait, so
they only live in Japanese guts or what? Yeah, that's right,
(29:50):
or at least they haven't been found in the guts
of North Americans. So you know, we have trillions of
bacteria living in our intestines, and they account for hundreds
of different species. But North Americans lack the one that
produces this seaweed eating enzyme. That's pretty crazy. So do
we know why that is? We're not sure, but there
are a few theories. So the main one is that
Japanese people, you know, a long time ago, swallowed this
(30:11):
enzyme along with some seaweed a while ago, and from
there the enzyme genes were transferred to the microbes living
in the person's gut and then handed down through the
family bloodline, and the genes might have been phased out
at some point along the way, except that Japanese people
kept eating seaweed heavy diets. So why I get rid
of something that aids in digestion. That's pretty amazing. You know.
I'm actually glad you brought this up because we've talked
(30:33):
a bit about history, We've talked a little bit about culture,
so I feel like we should take some time down
and check out more of the surprising science behind sushi
because there's some really interesting stuff there. Definitely, but let's
take a quick break first. Okay, Well, so let's get
(30:59):
scientific wish sushi component do you want to look at first? Well,
We've mentioned a few times now that mixing with savy
with soy sauce is a bad idea, so I kind
of want to break down why that is. But first
let's be clear about what was sabi is and what
it isn't. Because you know the spicy green lumps that
are served in American restaurants, the one that mentioned my
father in law eating, and you know, prepackaged in these
(31:20):
sushi trays, that's actually not was sabi. So real was
sabi is made from the grated stems of a plant
that's native to Japan, which means getting your hands on
it outside the country can actually be really expensive. So
I'd heard this, but I don't know the specifics. So
what's the stuff we've been eating. Well, most of the
wasabi here in the States, it's made from horse radish
and mustard powder plus a little food coloring to give
(31:42):
it that healthy green glow. And if you aren't being
charged separately for wasabi, it's most likely fake. That's interesting.
But aside from like the cred in the kitchen, is
there any advantage to using real with sabi? Well, it
depends on who you ask, but real was sabia is
said to have a more herbal taste than the fake
stuff that we're used to eating. And and because authentic
was sabi loses much of its flavor after only fifteen
(32:05):
minutes from being grated, the the sushi chef generally prepare
a new batch for every single order, so you know,
the real stuff has a much more fresh taste as well.
That's crazy it loses its flavor so quickly. But I'm
guessing neither kind should go in your soy sauce. No,
definitely not, so I hope you hear that, Tristan. But
you know, the reason really has more to do with
science than etiquette. So that pungent burning sensation that was
(32:27):
sabi causes in our nasal passages, that that's due to
a volatile chemical that it contains. Now, this chemical is
similar to mustard oil, so it actually turns up in
both real and fake was saby. And because with sabi's
heat comes from a chemical rather than an oil based
heat like chili peppers, for example, you know that that
burning sensation can be counteracted by food or water. So
(32:47):
if you think about it, when people mix with sabi
with water based soy sauce, they're really neutralizing that heat
and and killing most of that natural flavor in the process. Yeah,
it's really self defeating stuff. It actually reminds me of
something I read that when sushi chef's notice people adding
a ton of with sabi to their sushi, they immediately
switched to less desirable cuts of fish, you know, the
(33:09):
stuff the kitchen needs to unload. And the thining is
why waste all this premium fish on folks who are
only gonna drown it with savvy anyway? Yeah, that's you know,
it's it's a good point. And I mean, obviously, the
big draw of sushi is the phenomenal taste of the fish,
so you don't want to bury that in condiments and
and spoil the whole effect. And by the way, have
you ever stopped to think about how weird it is
(33:29):
that we love the taste of raw fish so much.
I mean, it's like raw chicken, raw pork. We don't
want any part of it, and obviously for good reasons helped,
but raw fish, I mean, it feels like people are
just obsessed with it. Yes, I was curious about that too,
and I ended up checking out the work of this biophysicist.
His name's Old morrits, and so, according to him, the
addicting taste of raw fish is actually thanks to gravity. Yeah,
(33:53):
in the ocean, gravity's effect is so weak due to
the buoyancy of water that most fish basically float weight
sleep for their whole lives. And the result is this
laid back lifestyle that the fish muscles are much softer
and smoother than the you know, the thick ropey muscle
fibers that terrestrial animals have, and and typically the more
work a muscle does, the tougher it grows. So I
(34:14):
guess while fish are floating around without a care in
the world, those of us on landers that were waging
this constant war against gravity just to stay upright, I
guess I didn't hadn't thought about it that way exactly.
And that's why the fatty belly of the tuna is
such a prize cut for sushi lovers. It gets the
least used, so it's always the softest, tastiest part of
the fish. But you know, if you think about the
(34:34):
muscle qualities of fish, they actually explain more than why
sushi tastes delicious. They also account for why sushi looks delicious.
And this was just fascinating to read up on. So,
the rainbow colors of the fish used in sushi are
mostly due to the amount of oxygen in their muscles.
So when a more active fish, say like a tuna,
you've got a protein called myoglobin that carries oxygen to
(34:56):
the muscles so they can make it into energy. But
my globin also contains iron, which happens to take on
that deep red color that you see in the fish.
That's pretty cool. But what about something like a flounder
though when I see those in restaurants there like, it
often looks more white when used in sushi. Yeah, So
that pearl white color and a fish, it indicates that
there were maybe more sedentary and that its muscles didn't
(35:16):
need that steady stream of oxygen in order to make energy.
So there are also lots of fish that have a
combination of muscles that are oxygen dependent and ones that aren't,
And as you might expect from those, those are fish
that wind up looking, you know, maybe a little more pink. So,
I mean, I guess that explains why salmon have that
pinkish orangish color. Well, good guess, I know you're trying
to be smart on that, but it did not exactly.
(35:38):
There are actually two things going on with salmon, and
that that's depending on whether they're wild or farm raised.
So in the wild, that trademark orange hue is derived
from the fish's diet, not its muscles. So salmon are
eating a lot of shrimp, a lot of krill, and
and these are are shellfish that contain a certain pigment
that's actually similar to the one in carrots that give
carrots that orange color. Well, well, what about raised SALMONA well,
(36:01):
believe it or not, those salmon are actually artificially colored.
And so salmon raised and captivity maybe they don't have
the luxury of eating shrimp dinners. So so the fish
farmers are actually adding a pigment in order to give
them that salmon color that you see. And it's it's
not something that the farmers are actually all that excited
to do, not just because they you know, they don't
want to be adding something artificial, but also because it's
(36:23):
expensive to do. I mean that they say that it
costs as much as of their feed bill to add
this pigment. That's crazy. But the public expects to see
this rosy, pink and orange salmon and studies show that
this is true. I mean that they're willing to pay
more for it. So, according to this market research that
I was looking at, American consumers will pay as much
as a dollar per pound more for that darker colored
(36:47):
salmon that you see out there. I know I feel
the same way like when I see eggs. I know,
brown eggs aren't better for you than white eggs, but
I still like the field and more. But obviously that's
a lot of money to leave on the table or
something as trivial as color. That's true. But no matter
what you think about dying fish pink, these newer methods
are definitely a whole lot better than the old industry standard.
(37:09):
I don't know if you've read about this before, but
they used to slice the fish open and then gas
it with carbon monoxide in order to change It's like,
I swear, that is a real thing. It's gross. Yeah,
I mean, I take the pigment compounds over then. I kidding.
But we've given fishing to do so I want to
(37:29):
circle back to the science of sushi's other star, and
that's the rice, because it's really as important as fresh
quality fishes. It's the rice that makes or breaks a
piece of sushi. And that's why sushi chefs are is
so meticulous about which rice they use and how they
cook it. All. Right, so what makes for good sushi rice? Well,
most Japanese sushi chefs have they their own go to grains,
(37:50):
which are sometimes the ones grown in their own hometowns.
But the real secret sushi rice is to find a
short grain rice that can absorb a lot of water
without cracking. And you have to see the the rice
takes in water as it cooks, but if the grains
absorbed too much, they'll actually burst open. And so what
does that That like throws off the texture or something? Yeah,
(38:10):
that's right, but it's not the cracks themselves that are
the problem. The real issue is that every grain of
rice contains a bit of starch inside, so when it
cracks during the cooking, the starch can leak out and
that turns your rice into a mushy, sticky mess. And
with sushi, you you definitely want to feel the texture
of each grain as well as the air between them.
So to sidestuff that problem, a good sushi chef will
(38:31):
actually south their grains ahead of time and check for
cracks before using each piece of rice. I feel like
sometimes I'm not tasting the right way because I can't
say I've ever felt like I was tasting each grain
of rice and the air and between the grains of rice. Well,
I mean that portable shrine analogy makes a lot more say, yes,
I get it, I understand it now, But I mean, actually,
think about all this. It is amazing to see how
(38:53):
much thought and care goes into crafting even you know,
like a single piece of sushi. And I know the
rigor of preparing or even consuming sushi. It it can feel,
you know, daunting or uninviting to someone who just wants
to grab a bite to eat. But I do hope
we've shown today that there's a real elegance and a
logic to each in every sushi custom. And the end
(39:13):
goal isn't to make you feel frustrated or uncultured, but
really to give you one of the best food experiences
that you could have. Yeah, and and speaking of elegance
and logic, we should probably get started on one of
our own customs, unless, of course, you're threatened by its rigor.
If you're talking about the fact off mango, I'm pretty
sure I can handle it. I'm even willing to go
first here. I've got a good one here. So it
(39:44):
says if you want to go to the oldest and
biggest fish market in the world, you'll head to Sukiji
Fish Market in Tokyo. Now, one of the coolest things
I saw about this. This is their big tuna auction
that happens regularly and the sushi stets go there to
bid on bluefin. The auction starts at three in the mornings.
You'll need to get there little bit after midnight to
guarantee a seed, and then you can watch sushi chefs
pay some seriously big bucks. I was looking at the
(40:06):
numbers on this and the most ever paid for a
blue fin at auction there was one point eight million
dollars for a single four eighty nine pound fish. Is
that not the same I've never paid that much for
a fish. I haven't even been to a fish auction.
But it's being a blue fin. It might be a
hot ticket item now, but fisherman actually used to avoid it,
(40:29):
and that's because it's a really strong fish and it
would tear up the fishing nets. But this all changed
in the fifties because nylon nets came along and it
became an easier to catch. But you know, sadly that's
resulted in over fishing. Yeah, and that's definitely a very
big problem. All right. Now, we talked earlier about the
Tokyo restaurant suki Yobashi Jiro that was made famous by
the documentary Zero Dreams of Sushi, and it's often cited
(40:52):
as the best sushi restaurant in the world. So I
was looking at how you could possibly get reservations, and
it's definitely not easy. First of all, you can only
call on the very first day of the month. In
order to make reservations. You've got to be prepared to
speak Japanese and leave a Japanese phone number behind just
so you can hope to score a reservation. So do
all those things, and it's a possibility. But you know, interestingly,
(41:13):
there's no menu at the restaurant. It's just a twenty
course meal made up of whatever Gero's in the mood
to serve that day. And it's actually surprisingly quick meal.
They expect that each piece of sushi is going to
be eaten as soon as it's presented, so so really
it can take only like thirty minutes or so to
eat this three hundred dollar meal. That's amazing. Do you
(41:34):
know that there was a two thousand seventeen study that
showed that nearly half of all the fish from well
respected sushi places in l A were mislabeled. Yeah. So
the study actually looked at more than three fifty samples
of ten fish and this was across twenty six really
good restaurants, and what they found was that sent were fake.
Yeah most of the time fish like red snapper or
(41:55):
yellow fin, we're actually a fish like flounder. Wow. Alright. Well,
last year Seamless that the data on sushi orders across
several major cities around the country, and it was kind
of interesting to see that, you know, certain types of
sushi are much more popular in certain cities than others.
I was taking a look at this. In Boston, it's
eight times more likely that people order spicy tuner rolls
(42:15):
than in other markets. Now, if you want a crunchy,
spicy tuner roll, then you need to head to Denver
if you want to be in what the popular pack there.
In Miami there's seven times more likely to go for
a salmon temporal role than in other cities. Of course,
in Philly, which I know you're close to a deep
fried tuna and salmon is the popular one there. And
then in DC, the spicy crunch shrimp roll is thirty
(42:38):
five times more likely to be ordered there than in
other markets. Why do they like that one so much?
Times So, it seems like when we talk about sushi
or other really fresh foods, people often talk about freezing
those foods is a terrible thing. But this is something
I learned in our research. Did you know that FDA
regulations mandate that raw fish has to be frozen for
a specified period of time to work can be served.
(43:01):
I mean it's to kill parasites, and it applies no
matter how fresh the fish maybe. And in Japan, the
real sushi masters know how to look for parasites or
other problems with the fish so they can still serve
the fish without freezing it. So every piece of fish
that we eat in a restaurant here in the States,
sushi or not, has to be frozen at some point before. Wow,
I didn't know that. Actually this means that sushi is
(43:22):
pretty much just like all those frozen fish sticks I
used to eat as a kid, and that makes me
really happy. So I think for that I'm going to
give you today's fact Off trophy. Congratulations Mango. Thank you
so much, and if we forgot any great sushi facts,
please don't hesitate to let us know. You can always
email us where at part Time Genius at how stuff
Works dot com, or you can call us on seven
(43:43):
fact Hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius, or
you can find us on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you
so much for listening, round, Thanks again for listening. Part
(44:04):
Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and
wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the
important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil
does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song
and does the MIXI MIXI sound thing. Jerry Rowland does
the exact producer thing. Gave Bluesier is our lead researcher,
with support from the research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff Cook gets the
(44:26):
show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like
what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, and if you
really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
a good review for us do we forget Jason? Jason
who
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