July 15, 2014 • 50 mins
Sushi grew out of a way to ferment fish a couple thousand years ago and in the late 20th century began to take the world by storm. What began as traditional, rigid food has come to evolve with new delicious innovations being added to the original canon.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to stuff you should know Frondhouse stuff works dot com. Hey,
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as
always is the dour Charles w Chuck Bryant and Jerry,
who's snortling over there, which is kind of like a
(00:24):
like a laughing through your nose. What I thought, dour?
I thought it meant like a gloomy or something. Yeah,
you seem a little bluemy today. No, do you think
the smile is space? Yeah? That one, man. I wish
I had a picture of that. We could put that
on a T shirt, and then I could wear that
(00:44):
T shirt, and then you could get a picture of
me wearing that T shirt and put that on a
T shirt and wear that T shirt and so on
and so forth. It would be like Ryan Gosling and
mcaul yep. That to Beau this time though? This time? Yeah, alright, alright,
(01:04):
you're always making me be Ryan Gossly. Who wants that? Nobody?
How are you? I'm good man, I gotta tell you so.
We're about to do sushi. By the way, this thing
made me really hungry. Oh my god, I want sushi
so bad now and have for days. Now. Just remember
the yawning episode and people are like, oh, I listen
(01:25):
to this and I yawn the entire time. Yeah, well,
prepared to want sushi everybody, Even if you don't like
sushi or never had sushi, I guarantee you you will
want sushi by the end of this or we will
give you your money back for this episode. So you've
had sushi, yeah, I mean it's one. It's one of
my favorite foods. I could live in Japan and eat
sushi every day. Yes, I'm going to Japan next year
(01:48):
and I plan on eating sushi every day. I would
have I would not get sick of it. No, No,
it'd be really tough to especially with the variety of
do you know everybody thinks sushi is basically like, um,
a little bite of rice with a bunch of ingredients
tucked in it or on top of it. Yeah, or
maybe it's like a little little lump of rice with
(02:08):
some you know, fish on under something. There's a whole
galaxy of sushi out there, especially when you go to Japan.
I mean, just prepared to have your mind blown. I mean,
you've had it before, but yeah, my buddy Jason lives
up it there and it's like, it's not like sushi
Avenue here, Indicator Georgia, does he ever mail you sushi?
It probably wouldn't stay very well. Um, but if you
(02:28):
figured out a way to stick it into one of
those live organ courier things, it would be great. Uh.
I don't think so well. You know, if you eat
raw sushi here, with the exception of tuna, and by
here I mean the United States, Um, it's not fresh.
It's been frozen by law except for tuna. And I
(02:52):
couldn't find out why tuna was the only exception, But
all fish that's intended to be served raw has to
be frozen. US frozen is fine, And then of course
thought back out, but it can't just be from the
ocean to your plate. Yeah, and before the pedantic ones
among you start emailing, Josh said sushi when he was
talking about raw fish and infects, Sushi is rice and
(03:15):
that is sushimi, using the colloquial exactly. When people say, hey,
let's go out for sushi, it's like a a genre
of food, like hey, let's go out for Italian and
you don't go and they say, actually, that's a Sicilian
item of food. Yeah, if this is ringing true to
(03:36):
you and it's reminding you of yourself. Take a take.
You need to do some personality changes. If this is
your friend, then you should surround yourself with higher quality
people in that. Yeah, I mean go out for sushi.
That means you can have me so soup, and that
means going out for sushi and you can have uh
like at a mammy and a seaweed salad. And that's
all part of the experience that's going out for sushi
(03:59):
yah and this country it basically is shorthand for Japanese.
You're going out for Japanese, yes, sort of, but not hibachi.
Habachi is not Japanese. Is strictly a Rocky Aoki American. Yes,
I mean they do have habaski girls and stuff like that,
but the experience, the benni hana version totally American invention.
(04:20):
I've never been to one of those places. Oh yeah,
I mean it's like there's a guy like chopping and
cooking and and like tossing stuff into his hat and everything. Alright,
So chuck Um, thank you for pointing out the sushi thing,
because I am going to do that a lot. And
we should say when if you are specifically talking about
sushi in Japan. You're talking about. Um. Vinegard rice is
(04:44):
roughly what the word means, medium or short grain. The
stuff that's on top, Um, the neta, which is a
fish seafood topping that you put on sushi is actually
that raw fish is called sashimi like you said it. Yeah,
you can eat that by itself as well. If it's
fried stuff, it's called tempura. Yeah. Different types of sushi
(05:06):
have different kinds of names. But UM, let's get into this,
shall we. Let's let's talk about the history, because this
whole thing didn't even start in Japan. Yeah, it's pretty interesting, uh.
I mean, if you look at sushi, there's a lot
of folklore surrounding it, Um, a lot of mysterious origins. Um.
One of the old wives tales from Japan is that
funny It just appeared out of nowhere one day, mysteriously.
(05:29):
Uh No, it just means it can't be there now,
I'm just teasing. You're joshing, I am josh in the chuck.
That's right. Uh. There's an old Japanese wives tale about
an elderly lady who would hide her rights from thieves
and osprey nests, and she would forget where they were,
and they would ferment the rice wood and then the
seafood that the osprey would eat would fall down in there,
(05:50):
and waila, that was the first sushi. Yes, that's a
great story. But it's a lie. Yeah, not necessarily, it's not.
It's not a lies folklore, which are lies. I guess
it's told by old ladies. Very harsh way to say it. Um.
So there's the The earliest sushi supposedly was around in
in Southeast Asia, in I don't know, years ago. They
(06:15):
were taking cooked rice which does ferment, and packing fish
in it, and then the fermentation of the rice, yeah,
I kept it long before refrigeration, but it also kind
of pickled the fish. But then once the fish was
pickled over the course of like weeks, and they would
place it under like a heavy stone or something like
that to basically compress it. And once the once the
(06:36):
fish was pickled, they throw the rice out and to
seat the fish. Yes, and in fact, a sushi kitchen
can be called a suki bar or a pickling place.
That's bam. The original version of sushi was basically fermented
fish that was fermented with rice. Pickled fish fermented with rice.
Then they threw the rice out. Somebody said, well, wait
(06:57):
a minute, does this rice taste like, Oh my god,
this is delicious, And what would it taste like if
I put this fermentued fish on the rice? And they went,
oh my god, this is even better. So they said, well,
let's try this a different way. If we're not gonna
throw the fish or throw the rice out, let's actually
gut the fish. And this is the tenth century, by
the way, and by now this is in Japan. Um,
(07:19):
let's get the fish, soak it in saki, which is
Japanese rice wine, and then pack that thing full of
rice and let that ferment and then after a few
weeks we'll just slice it and then eat that. Yeah,
And each each of these steps basically is speeding the
process up a lot. Like the very first process took
(07:40):
about a year and a half, did it And it
was only for like the uber wealthy. Once they added sake, though,
that speeded that up. That speeded that up, and that
stuff still around. It's called nara sushi or rice sushi. Yeah,
I'm sorry, ripe sushi, and apparently you can still get that.
And it's a little like for your American taste buds.
It might taste a little funny, but I'll bet once
you get used to you're like, this is I have
(08:01):
to have us all the time. Probably so. Uh So.
Then in the sixteen hundreds, early sixteen hundreds of Japanese
military leader name Tokugawa Aye Yasu. We're gonna do our
best with these Japanese pronunciations. Yes, give us a break. Uh.
He moved the capital from Kyoto to Ito, which would
later become Tokyo, and by the nineteenth century it was
(08:22):
a hoppin city. And in the mid seventeen hundreds they
sped up that process a little bit more by skipping
the saki and using rice vinegar, yeah, which made it
like a matter of days after that for a couple hours, right, yeah,
which is what I was following up with, Yeah, which
is I mean that's super quick, and then you would
(08:43):
fly set into pieces and uh again just cutting that
preparation time. Yeah. And then in um Kyoto, which was
the former uh seat of power in Japan before it
was moved to Ato or Tokyo, um they would take
that vinegar and in some ingredients maybe a little cucumber,
a little dried seaweed, which is known as nori, and
(09:04):
they put it in a box and press it together
and you'd have oshi sushi, which is Osaka style sushi.
It's it's like a square of sushi, right. And there
was a guy who lived in Ato in Tokyo in
the eighteen twenties, and his name was Yohei Hanaya, and
he had a little cart where he was making oshi
(09:25):
sushi and everybody liked it and all that. But apparently,
as the story goes, some of his customers were like,
I'm very busy and important and I don't have time
for you to press this into a box. That's hurry up.
Make it snappy. So he took some of that rice,
that vinegar flavored rice, and rolled it up in his
hand a little bit, and then he would take some
fish that was taken out of Tokyo bay or Edo.
(09:45):
May I mean. He was set up right there on
the water exactly, and he cut off a little bit
of slice and put it in there, maybe with the
streak of a sabi, and handed it to the He said, here, jerk,
is that fast enough? That took me like three minutes exactly,
And they said, well, by god, this is Japanese street food.
That is fast food that we can use our hands
for and eating two bites and nigiri sushi. Uh, what
(10:08):
a lot of people think of as sushi was born.
The modern sushi was born right there in that food stall,
that's right. And then the Great Canto earthquake hit Tokyo
and land prices went down, and all of a sudden
there was a lot of retail space, and so the
sushi car said, hey, maybe we should move these things
inside and started a legit restaurant. And it happened all
(10:28):
over the place, and by the nineteen fifties it was
the sushi restaurant was where it was at. Yes, basically
in the nineteen thirties, yes, to refrigeration, you could chip fish.
By the seventies and the post war economy, people were
loving the stuff. So it started to boom in other
like all over Japan, and then started to spread to
(10:49):
other parts of the world. It did, and in the
United States it was first adopted in the sixties in
Los Angeles. Of course it was Los Angeles. There was
a place called Kawa Fuku and that was the first
big American embraced um sushi restaurant in the United States.
And and then the yuppies came, and you think, like
(11:10):
eighties in sushi, right, I do, I always have, Yeah,
But apparently it wasn't until like the nineties that sushi
really hit New York. And it was because of a
unknown man named Robert de Niro who who talked the
chef of Nobu, whose name is uh Nobu Yuki Matsu.
(11:34):
I'm gonna be in so much trouble when I get home.
So de Niro talked the chef of Nobu, Nobu Yuki Matsushisa.
I think that's it. It's really close, if not to
open Nobu, which was already an l A icon in
New York in So apparently sushi didn't hit New York
big time until the nineties, even though I think of
(11:55):
it like total American psycho fodder. Yeah, I mean it
was a sound I think it probably the explosion didn't.
I mean, it was very much a California thing. Um.
That first restaurant was a little tokyo in l A.
And then in the seventies they opened one in Hollywood
called Oshow in nineteen seventy and that was you know,
that was when the celebrity started going and they was like, oh,
(12:17):
Oh my god, this is so exotic and delicious and
I could eat it every day. And um, something really
really big happened in nineteen seventy three. Um, there was
a place in Los Angeles, uh, and there was a
sushi chef there. His name was Manashita, and Manashita created
an inside out roll a maki which is maki sushi
(12:40):
is a hand roll or no, it's a role that
used a bamboo mat for We'll get into it. So
was it inside out a regular inside out maki roll
with avocado, crab and cucumber, that's right, yes, okay. And
he made the California role and that became the entree,
Like that's the gateway drug to sushi for a lot
(13:00):
of Americans. Yeah, because it doesn't have the raw fish
in there. If you're creeped out by that, it's like
you can start on the California roll and be like, oh,
this is just sort of like a salad, all right,
And then once you go and eat California rolls enough times,
you're like, well, maybe I will try a bite of that,
and once you do, you're never going back. It's like
I can still lead a California roll like a bite
(13:20):
of it or something like that. But I'm more like,
that's a waste of sushi, Like I want I want
good nagiri or yeah, if I've got that, I'll put
that six dollars towards something else. Yeah, but I'll make
a California roll at home because it's uh, oh you
making my home. Yeah, And well we'll get we'll get
to all that. So Chuck, that's the history of sushi
(13:40):
up to right now. Now, um, yeah, let's let's talk
about fish in a second. Let's take a message break first. Okay,
(14:01):
so we're talking about fish. Raw Fish is a common
ingredient when you go to a sushi restaurant. But if
you're not into that, there are plenty of other offerings.
You've talked about tempora, We talked about the California California roll.
You can that can be uh, you can use veggies.
This article says virtually any type of vegetable, but completely
disagree with that. Yeah, Like you're not gonna roll up
(14:22):
broccoli or cauliflower and sushi, are you? No? But man,
I am crazy for ground up cauliflower as like a
rice substitute or something like that, or like massed potato
substude like collie taters, like puade califlower so good. Yeah.
I've been making collie taters for years, dude. I spend
my entire life up until like a couple of months ago,
(14:45):
hating cauliflower. I never told you about collie taters. No,
I've heard of it before. I just never really tried it.
But you mean, and I like started making it, and
I'm like, wow, this is good. Yeah, and it's you know,
I hate it when people say he's just like something.
It doesn't taste just thing, but it's it's got its consistency,
then it's good. Right. It mimics the consistency, not the taste. Yeah,
(15:07):
but the taste isn't too far off. I mean, yeah,
it doesn't taste like rotted horsemeat compared to like mashed
potatoes or something. But I think it's like it's its
own distinct thing it is. So that's my treatise on cauliflower. Yeah.
You won't put cauliflower in your sushi though, but you
can find asparagus and sushi fairly frequently. YEA cucumber, Uh, well,
(15:29):
I guess that's it. No, there's some more stuff. Mushrooms.
Oh yeah, mushrooms it's a big staple of a lot
of sushi. That was the third one. Yeah, it's some
nice shitakis boom. Have you been to Umi Sushi yet? Uh? Now,
it is amazing. Yeah. The one I've been on lately
is um shoot. I can't think of the name of
it now, uh me so I think is the name
(15:53):
of it in the old fourth word. And it's good,
little pricey but you know, oh yeah, Misosakaya. Yeah yeah, yeah,
it's supposed to be real good. It's good stuff. It's
more um it's like new veau sushi, which I guess
Umi Sushi is kind of. But they have like a
like an old traditional sushi chef running the place there.
Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean in America, you're gonna find
some variations. And in fact, the inside out roll apparently
(16:16):
is a totally American thing, even though it has now
since found its way over to Japan. But it did
not originate in Japan, right, No, the reverse roll or
inside out it was like an echo that came back
by storm. And if you don't know what we're talking about,
that's when the rice is on the outside of the
roll and the nori is on the inside instead of
the other way around. Yes, alright, so Chuck, if you argue,
(16:38):
use fish or you're ordering at a a sushi place.
The most of the fish are gonna see is um
salt water see see fish. Yeah, you don't want to
trout roll No. And the reason why it is because
freshwater fish are much more prone to parasites. The saltwater fish.
Parasites don't like salt as much. Right, yeah. Um, But
(17:01):
occasionally you will see a freshwater seafood. There's like a
type of eel that's really good, that's fresh water. Yeah,
I love the eel. Is always get the two eels confused,
and I always get like, after all these years, I
still can't commit it to memory, and about every third
time order the wrong one. Oh really, I don't think
I've ever had the saltwater eel. Yeah. I mean it's
(17:22):
not bad, of course, but I like the like the
freshwater more. Yeah, I do too. And you can buy
I make that's one of the ones that make at home.
You can there's a great Japanese market over by the
farmer's market and you can buy it and the refrigerator
and they make it in the oven. And yeah, because
that's the thing. If you order the freshwater eel like
it does. It doesn't come raw like it's seared or
something like that. Yeah, it's like a seared then like
(17:43):
a karyaki sauce. So delicious it is. Man, you know
it's okay. So you're gonna have freshwater fish, yeah, um
or freshwater seafood most of the time, saltwater saltwater, thank
you man and um. One of the most highly prized
seafood that you're going to find in sushi of any
(18:04):
type is tuna. And there's different types of tuna. Um.
They they'll they'll use a yellow finn, big guy, blue
fine and blue finn is the most expensive one. And
apparently it wasn't until the fifties that the Japanese came
to prize bluefin. Like before they used it for caffood.
Like they wouldn't even eat that stuff. Yeah, that's what
I heard, Like the belly is was originally and now
(18:26):
it's like the prize and the belly now or used
to be, like they wouldn't eat it. Yeah. Actually, the
record for the highest priced fish ever sold I believe
anywhere um was sold at the Tokyo Fish Market last year.
It was a four ninety pound blue fin tuna. How
much at one point eight million dollars, Holy crap for
(18:46):
just that tuna. And I guarantee they made their money.
And then something man, yeah, that's a big tuna. I
feel kind of bad for that guy, even though I
love to eat him so much. The tuna, well, there's
definitely a moral thread that runs through tuna or not sushi,
like apparently yellow fin tuna. Farm raised tuna or raised
a lot like veal and fatten until their muscles deteriorate
(19:06):
alive um and and then of course there's the have
you seen the raw or live frog video? There is
a type of sushi that is it's called um iki zukuri,
which is live sushi, and there's an iki zukuri video.
(19:27):
And if you have a light stomach at all or
anything like that, are bothered by animals being killed, like
you should not watch this. But the point is you
eat the thing while it's basically part of it is
still alive on the plate looking at you like this
frog is sitting there blinking. It's a frog. There's a frog.
(19:48):
And I can't remember what the other one is, but
there's they showed two things being prepared. It's not. Have
you have you seen Old Boy the original? Remember he
eats that squid live, that's a that's live sushi. Wow,
Like that was real. Yeah, not for me, And yeah
you get pretty adventurous. That would you do that? Probably
just to try it? Yeah, I mean it's just like,
(20:11):
I know everything is killed that we eat, right, but
it's just like, I don't know being confronted with it.
Who knows that. I can imagine some of the people
who are into like that slow food movement are like, well, yeah,
that's the way you should do it. You should have
to confront the death while you eat. No. I mean
a lot of people would say it's hypocritical to not
do that, you know, right, but a lot of butte
(20:32):
a lot of people are comfortable with that. Emily won't
eat anything that reminds her of an animal, Like she
didn't even like bones in her chicken. Yeah. Uh. And
like if someone surved her a fish with a head
on it, like fully cooked, she would just be like, no, no, no, no,
that fish is looking at me. It's like the duck
in a Christmas story. Yeah he's smiling. Uh. Okay, So
(20:55):
we're talking about tuna. Tuna is delicious salmon is delicious
yellow tail and hamachi and surf clam, and there's all
sorts of delicious seafood that you can get on your
sushi or in your rolls, and then you just spread
out from there. If there's a fried chicken in there,
it might be a little too Americanized, although that's what
you're into, then great, well it would be considered temporal
(21:18):
chicken in that case. Yeah, but yeah, come on, if
there's fried chicken and mayonnaise rolled up in rice, then
that sounds kind of good. Well, I know, but it's
is it sushi? Well, Rogers Roasters. I feel like there's
been kind of you know, there's definitely a traditional thread
of sushi, right, yeah, I don't know, mind mixing it
up a little bit, and there's like traditional preparations and
(21:40):
then there's traditional ingredients. But then it's like you said,
you know, in the seventies, when the California role was
made here in America, it was sent back and now
you can get a California role pretty much anywhere in Japan,
and it's expanded from there. So I think, yeah, I
think sushi is kind of this evolving thing. I've seen
cereals added have you seen that like corn flakes or
(22:01):
rice crispies on top. Yeah, I'm not into that either
for crunch, yeah, or or or squirting a bunch of
sauce on top. I'm not a big fan of that either. Yeah. Well,
that's another thing that we'll talk about when we talk
about how to eat sushi. But really there's a lot
of sushi that's prepared that you're not supposed to do
anything to except eat. Yeah. So I guess we should
(22:23):
finish what can be in sushi thing by mentioning uh
row and tomago row is the fish eggs like a
little delicious orange. It's almost like caviar. Yeah, And there
can be little tiny ones and larger ones. I'm sure
there's a difference in the name. Do you know I
didn't look that up. No, Cherry's nodding. Is there a
difference in the name. I'm sure it's not necessarily by size,
(22:45):
but probably by fish. Yeah. I think the smelt row
is the smaller m I think so, Yeah, the little
little tiny beads. Yeah, and that's usually added with a
roll or on top of something, and the other larger ones.
A lot of times that's just wrapped in the nori
and that's all you're eating. Yeah, Or there's just like
one on top of the thing. Oh yeah, like a
little bead huh for presentation. Yeah, I want to say,
(23:05):
a coil egg on top of legs. Yesterday this was raw.
I didn't realize it was gonna be raw. I ate
it anyway, Like you said, I'm adventurous, but man, I
was like, I'm never ordering that again. No, I'm not
too big on raw eggs um except strangely in like
(23:26):
a tataki or um carpaccio or something like that. Yeah. Yeah,
I that's weird. I guess I guess I'll just have
to keep ordering it them, whether I like it or not. Alright,
Tomago is egg in sushi. But it is cooked and
it's like it's an it's an omelet. It's it's it's
made by adding little layers of egg. I've seen some
(23:46):
people like bake it in a pan. It's probably the
shortcut method. There's probably more traditional method. But um it's
almost like because it's sweet umlet, it's almost like a
dessert sushi. Yeah. And that's it's like an inch stick
and a slice and you put it on some sushi
rice with a little band of nori tied around it,
and that's delicious as well. Half avocado, so you say
(24:08):
it avocado? Uh, that is very popular, and that means
tuna of the land in Japan. Yeah, that's the the
word for avocado means tuna of the land. It's pretty cool. Yeah,
avocado is like a great addition to anything. Yeah, I agree,
and very good for you too. It really is the
good fat, yes, yeah, good for your heart and your brain. Um.
(24:29):
What else goes along with sushi? The soy sauce to
show you. Yeah, it's the type of soy sauce, and
like you can. You can dip your sushi and soy
sauce if you prefer, But you're supposed to use it
very sparingly. Yea. And supposedly you're not supposed to dip
the rice either. No, I drown it. I'm just you
want to talk about how to eat sushi the propper way? Uh? Sure, Okay,
(24:53):
I don't do it, that's fine. Yeah, a lot of
people eat with chopsticks. Yeah. Supposedly it's an insult to
the sushi chef to drown your sushi and rice. Yes, um,
And where would I be without you? Just staying wrong
stuff here and there. Um. So basically, let's say you
have a piece of naguri, which is just a little
(25:14):
lump of sushi with um like some some topping on it,
say tuna. Uh, you kind of lightly grabbed the nagii
on one side, on both sides with your fingers. Yes,
you don't need to use chopsticks. Sushi was originally a
finger food and um, you can feel free to eat
it the traditional way using your hands. Um. So you
(25:37):
grab the sides kind of lightly but firmly, you tilt
it over. You tilt this out, You tilt the naguri over,
and then you just basically have it. So you're grabbing,
you're holding onto the tuna and holding it almost like
a basket, so the rice is on top and the
tuna is on the bottom. You just flipped your sushi over.
If you want a little bit to show you, you
can just kinda just barely like pass it through to
(26:01):
show you the soy sauce, just the tip, yes, yeah,
of just the seafood. Yeah, you're not supposed touch the
rice to it. Yeah, that's what I hear. You take
um one bite, depending on the size you can put
the whole thing in your mouth and eat it. But
you want to put it the topping side down, and
then if it's a big piece of nigiri, then um,
(26:21):
you can bite it and then eat it in two pieces.
All right, here's Chuck's method. I take it and I
dump the entire thing and a big bowl of soy sauce,
and then I pull it out and I stick it
in my mouth and chew it up and eat it
all and then I wash it down with the supporo.
Well that's customary. I'm a happy guy. You would probably
(26:42):
like chio rashi sushi, which is basically a bowl of
rice with sushi toppings. Yeah, I could. I could be
down with that. Is there the nori in there? Though?
Because I love the nori? I think everything you want
in there, whatever kind of sushi you want, it's just
like in a bowl. It's just like a KFC bowl.
But yeah, or oh man, what are those awful beef
(27:03):
bull places out west Yoshi Naki or something beef bull
like in the shopping malls. Yeah, I know what you're
talking about. I can't remember the name of them. Are
they not good? Well? I mean, you get you tell me,
you get like a three pound beef and rice bowl
for like three dollars. Oh, that sounds good. I don't
think it's They're known for their high quality meats. So
(27:24):
by beef, I mean cat yoshin nori. What is it called.
It's a chain. They're all over l A. Yeah, I
know you don't talking about I don't think they have
them here in Georgia. Uh, well, sabi. I don't do
the wasabi just because I don't like the taste. Um.
I know most people like to put it in their
soy sauce and mix it up. Apparently that is an
(27:44):
insult as well. Uh, it's it's abnormal. That's what Yumi
does though. Yeah, she puts in the sauce, puts a
lot of it in there. Yeah, so does Emily. She
loves that stuff. But the thing is is most sushi
is going to already have a little streak of wasabi
on top of the rice, beneath the topping. Yeah, so
you don't necessarily need any. And if you've ever wondered
why your nostrils are suddenly clear and you're breathing very
(28:08):
easily even though you didn't use any with sabby, it's
because it was already on there. Yeah. And here in
the United States, you're not eating with sabi anyway. Nope,
although you can get it at Umi sushi really, but
it's gonna cost you. Yeah, So that's the fact of
the podcast. For me. What you're eating is horse radish
and mustard paste that's dyed green, and they call it
(28:29):
was saby was sabi. When people say it's Japanese horse radish,
it actually isn't even horse radish. It's it's in that fan.
It's like a cousin of horse radish. And it is
expensive that goes by the river and you're eating the root.
It lives in a van down by the river. But
uh yeah, apparently it's so pricey. Like you're you're you've
probably never had real was sabi unless you're like high
(28:50):
falutin like you and go to fancy sushi places. Yes,
I'm sure noboo has real with saby. I just like
a little gentleman. I wear a velvet jacket and velvet
shorts with knee socks, which is a little hack, and
they saying, well, they served me it's wonderful. Well, that's
funny that you mentioned that, because being a sushi chef
(29:11):
in Japan, you're also supposed to be kind of part performer.
It's very social thing to sit at the sushi bar. Yeah,
you're you're not necessarily performing like at a habachi place.
It's not like that you're performing at a clown. You're
you're you're just you're friendly. Yeah, you're helpful. You want
the person to feel like they are welcome and that
(29:32):
they they are being led in on your expertise. Yeah,
like ask if you've never been and you want to
try it out, sit at the sushi bar and ask.
I like it anyway, just because I like to watch it.
But um asked the chef like, hey man, what's what's
good today? And I say, hey man, Because there's still
a lot of discrimination, um in Japan, even with women
(29:53):
becoming sushi chefs. Oh yeah, it's still a thing. Yes,
it is, chuck, Yeah, which is no good. Um. And apparently,
regardless of your gender, if you're a sushi chef, UM,
you are required to work at least two years if
you're working at a decent sushi place. Yeah. It sounds
like a lot, but it used to be ten. Yeah,
(30:14):
but well, two years just to learn to make the rice,
and then another year of training with a knife. Yes, okay,
and that's in Japan. Here in America they're turning them
out because there's just such a need, right. But once
you're a trained sushi chef, like you can become a
journeyman and like go anywhere in the world these days
and open your own place. Man. I'm so um have
(30:37):
you seen Zero Dreams of Sushi? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, that's
highly recommended. I think that's streaming on Netflix too. Um.
And you recommended that, I think to me for the
first time. Yeah. We went and saw in the theaters.
It was good. Yeah, it was really good. I mean
it's it's about wanting sushi. Yeah, And you don't have
to like sushi. If you just appreciate art and craftsmanship
and being the best at something, you should written that movie.
(31:00):
And family too. It's kid like. It's it's the man
and his two sons. I think Giro has been making
sushi for like seventy years or something like that, and
his two sons are following in his footsteps. And it's
really um uh intimate documentary about that family totally. So
we talked a little bit or I mentioned drinking a
(31:20):
nice cold sapporo. Um. People, I don't like sak myself. Um,
I just don't dig the rice wine. But that is
a big thing for a lot of people when they
go out to eat sushi is to drink sake. But
apparently because it is rice based and that your sushi
is rice based, it doesn't compliment one another. So you
technically shouldn't be drinking sake as you eat the sushi.
(31:42):
I think it's a lot like putting with sabi in
the soy sauce. Just do what you want. Yeah, well,
all this stuff is, of course, as long as you're
not insulting the sushi chef overtly and calling him things
like sense and stuff like that, really buttering him up,
I think you're doing. Okay, did people do that? I'm
sure they do. I haven't yet, but it's probably a
(32:02):
good idea. All right. Um, they recommend like green tea,
light beer, even water. But again, drink whatever you want.
But if you're drinking sake, supposedly you're not supposed to
pour your own. You're supposed to pour your buddies and
then they pour yours. Yeah, and this is if you're
going you know, you want to be traditional, sure, but
it makes saki for sharing by definition, by that um
(32:25):
one more a oh yeah, yeah, Like if you can't
pour your own sake, you're up the creek. If you're
just drinking it by yourself, what are you gonna ask
like a stranger? Sure, make a buddy, make a new
friend in Japan. Now, all right, we're gonna talk a
little bit about how to make sushi right after this message.
(32:56):
All right, so you've never made sushi. I'm surprised you
guys haven't tried it. I've never sushi, you know, well
I have, I haven't done it in a while. But
you can get your nori sheets and grocery stores. I
eat that stuff like a snack. Yeah, of course. Uh,
you can find your little crabsticks and cucumber. And where
it gets a little tricky is um is the fish itself. Like,
(33:18):
if you live in a big city, there's probably a
place where you can get sushi grade fish. If you
live out in the sticks, you might have a harder time,
but you definitely want to get sushi or sashimi grade
fish um and ask if it is sashimi grade um.
Like we said, no fresh water. You don't want to
trout roll no, and you want it to be nice
and vibrant color. Yeah. You don't want there to be
(33:40):
any weird like dark or soft spots. No, that's rot. Yeah,
the tuna should be like really bright red um or
pink yeah, like dark pink. Yeah, I mean you can
if you know how to spot it. You know the difference,
like if you get a little practice. Yeah. And if
you're not like Emily and you're buying the whole fish,
you want the eyes to be like not sunken in.
(34:02):
You want them to be like still just kind of
popping out, like, oh my gosh, I'm I can't believe
this is happening kind of eyes, you know. Yeah. It
shouldn't smell too fishy either. If it smells superfishy, that
means it's probably not super fresh. But once you have
your fish and you bought your nori, you want to
buy your rice. That's the first key ingredient you need
(34:23):
to master. And like we said, in Japan, they spent
two years learning how to make the rice properly. So
don't beat yourself up if it doesn't go well at first. No. Um,
but the the the rice you're making, you want to
start with sushi rice, which is a short or medium
grain rice and if you go to the store to
buy rice, like you go to a um Asian food
market or something like that, they're gonna have rice that
(34:46):
says sushi rice. And it's gonna come out like like
you want it. You're gonna be clumpy, it's not gonna
be like mushy. It's gonna be nice and sticky white rice. Well,
if you make it right right, you can mess it
up pretty bad. And I've learned, Um, I use col Rose.
That's something here in the United States you can look for. Yeah,
it's a real popular I think that started in California.
(35:07):
Um it's another one when we eat all the time,
is I think, um, oh, it's like Nische I believe.
Is that like the brand brand? Yeah, cal Rose is
a variety, so it may be a cal Rows. Still, Oh,
it's not a brand. I thought it was a brand.
That's a rice variety, a medium rain, medium range, medium grain.
So the key here when you're making the rice, there's
(35:29):
a lot of keys, but the first big key is
you don't just throw it in the pot and cook it.
You have to rinse it. And what I do what
my friend John, you know, chef John he Um, he
taught me to just put the rice, the dry uncooked
rice in a pot and start just a cold water,
like a slow cold water um run and just let
(35:53):
it go like walk away and the rice will kind
of stay at the bottom and the water will just
kind of overflow, but it'll that continuous walk our movement
and it's a little bit wasteful, you know, if you
don't like to leave your sink running or your water running.
But what you want to do is just rent to
the rice until the water is almost clear um and
you'll see it. It's real, real cloudy and kind of grainy,
(36:13):
and as you keep washing it, it'll clear up. And
you want to do with your hands and be gentle
with it. You don't want to mash it up. Don't
use a strainer because that can beat up the rice
pretty bad. Just treat it, treat it respectfully and sort
of wash it with your hands until the water is clear.
So that's step one. Then you got to soak it
for an additional half an hour in cold water. Just
(36:34):
walk away and leave it there. Then you're gonna add
uh half hours elapse. Okay, you should just sit here
for half um. After the half hour has elapsed, you
if you want, you can add a little sake to
it if you want. You can add something called dashi kanbu.
It's a dried kelp. I've never done that, but you can.
It makes it pop, does it? Okay? Uh? Then you're
(36:58):
gonna cook you know, I mean they'll probably say on
the package, but then you're gonna cook it a lot
like traditional rice. You boil it, cook it on a
medium heat with a pot on for about fifteen minutes,
then simmer for about twenty minutes over low heat. And
then they recommend here I've never heard of this, to
turn the heat up too high for a few seconds
at the end. I'm not sure what that does. I
(37:18):
think it maybe just like burns off any excess moisture.
That's what I would guess it does, all right, And
then leave the lid on and let it sit for
about fifteen minutes completely off the heat after that. All right,
So now the vinegar, right, you want to start with
rice vinegar. That's the kind you have to use, is
rice vinegar? Yeah? Appropriately enough? And you had no other
(37:41):
don't think like, oh, can you use apple cider vinegar
or white vinegar? You could use sushi vinegar, which is
prepared rice vinegar. But it's gotta be rice vinegar, right,
But if you want to make it yourself, you use
a little rice vinegar um about a quarter cup to
a table spoon of sugar and one and a half
teaspoons of salt. Yeah, and that's for five cups of rice. Right,
(38:01):
And you mix all that stuff up until the mixture
is clear, and you've got yourself some homemade sushi vinegar.
Once you're um, your rice is is ready. Yeah, you
want to turn it out into a bowl, is what
it's called. You dump it out into a bowl. Yeah,
And what you should get is and you probably bought
(38:22):
if you're trying to make sushi, probably bought a couple
of things like your little bamboo rolling mat and a
little wooden paddle they call it. And it's, you know,
basically a big flat spoon, and that is what you
use to turn it, um traditionally into a wooden bowl.
You can use anything but metal. Don't use metal, no,
because it will react with the vinegar. Yeah, that's no good.
You turn it out with the sushi paddle rice paddle, which,
(38:45):
by the way, you me and I have seen the
world's largest rice paddle. How big was it was big,
bigger than me. Uh, like as big as this table. No,
it was like the size of like a long canoe. Oh,
I said, the world's biggest rice paddle. Well I didn't that,
like I was trying to the flat part. Was it
as big as this table? Easily? Okay? In which for
(39:05):
everybody who's not in the room with us right now,
the table is probably about three three in diameter. Well
did they use the thing? I don't see how you could.
Or was it just one of the silly things, like
the world's biggest batchel? Of it? It was. It was
far from silly, but it was big. It was on
(39:26):
me and GiMA, which is a neat little island off
of Hiroshima, and they have the world's largest rice paddle display.
So you're gonna use that rice paddle to pry the
rice out of the pot into your wooden bowl. Uh,
and you know will come out kind of like a
like a cake almost before you, you know, start messing
with it. And then here's the thing. You don't just
(39:47):
dump this the vinegar that you've made all over the rice.
You want to pour it over the paddle and then
spread the paddle around over the rice. So it sort
of gently falls and distributes evenly, and then you want
to fold it in and then mix it together gently again,
make sure everything's coated pretty well, and then cool it
down to you're supposed to be fanning it while you're
(40:07):
doing this, and then cool it down to room temperature.
And then you're all set to go. And then you
want to take your hands and rinse them in vinegar
to prevent the rice from sticking just kind of lightly. Yeah,
you should have the paddle as well. Um, when you're
spreading it, you you need to soak that as well.
Really it works well, right um. And then you're ready
(40:28):
to start making nagari sushi, which is the easiest sushi
to make. Um, it's just basically finger sushi. You take
a little lump of rice and just kind of roll
it into an oblong shape in your hand. Uh, press
down one side on one side with a finger, and
that's the side that's going to be the bottom. So
basically you're adding stability and you don't want it super firm, um,
(40:51):
but you don't want it falling apart either, right Uh.
And then um, you take a little bit of a
save smear it on the top and then top it
with whatever ingredients you want, say, yeah, and they have
little molds by the way, if you don't feel like
you should try and make it in the palm of
your hand. But they do have little prefab molds that
you spoon the rice into and like you press a
(41:13):
little thing on top and then pop them out, which
would make it basically oshi sushi that osaka style. Remember
they have the press mold. Oh is that what it is? Yeah,
but there's a strictly like a box. Yeah. Yeah, this
is like eight little individual compartments. Yeah. There's shaped like
flowers and hearts and stuff like that too. I haven't
seen that. Oh yeah, oh yeah, mine's just rectangular. But
(41:35):
I don't use it. I did it first and then
I was like, no, I'm gonna try in the palm
of the hand. Have you ever made a nigiri um
sushi with like that? You were just like, this is perfect? No, No, yeah,
I guess it's just practice ten years at least. Yeah.
I mean it tastes fine, and they even point out
this article, it'll take some practice before it looks as
good as it tastes. The taste will be there, but
(41:56):
it's not what you're seeing the restaurant properly. You know
those guys are pros Yeah. Um, that was Nigeri sushi.
I just mentioned the little hand hand rolled fingerside pieces
and sushi. Yes, you can also make mokey yeah. And
that's when you take the full that's a sushi roll.
That's when you have the full sheet. Uh, you want
(42:17):
to spread about a third of it with a thin
coating of rice. And you want the norri shiny side
down onto the mat, the bamboo mat. Yeah. And so
you spread your rice. You don't want it super thick, yeah,
on top of the norri. And you know this is
a little bit of h if it's your first time,
there'll be some trial and air involved, you know, Like
I put way too much rice at first, and then
(42:39):
it was hard to roll and it looked like this
big burrito essentially, So you're gonna want the rice a
little thinner than you think even and then you uh
put it on the sheet. It's on the mat, and
you put your toppings across, kind of like you're making
a burrito, and then you fold the bamboo mat over
you roll the nori into the toppings. Um. And this
(43:01):
description feels a little convoluted. You basically just want to
roll it in the mat and I give it a
good squeeze at the end to make sure it's all
together and to let it know it's loved exactly. And
you want to I imagine this is another thing that
comes out with practice. Like you said, it first it
looks like a burrito. Um, but if you roll it,
and I would guess your hands need to be kind
(43:24):
of away from the center so that you're putting an
equal amount of pressure on the roll, and you're lightly
rolling it, being careful not to let the mat get
rolled up into the succi. Yeah, I've done that, just
rolling it over the top. But you're rolling the roll
together and then you got a little roll squeezed at
the end as per chuck. And then you take a
really sharp knife right and cut it in half. Then
(43:47):
you cut that in half and so on until you
have eight pieces, and my friend, you have a moki
sushi moki. Yeah. And like I said, it's a little
hard to describe. The best way to do it is
just to throw yourself in there and try it. And
if you've ever seen sushi rolls, then you're instinct will
kind of tell you how to do it and just
mess around. It's fun. Like, don't put pressure on yourself
to don't plan a big sushi dinner party on your
(44:10):
first dry Yeah, that's probably a good idea, you know,
just try it out yourself and then sorry. What we
just described was foodo maki. If you wanted to make
an inside out roll like a California roll, you would
be making what's called uromaki. And basically you follow the
same steps but just reversed. You start with the rice
and then you put the nori. You start with the
bamboo mat, then put the rice on that, then nori,
(44:32):
then your toppings, and then you roll that up. Did
you say it was covered in plastic? Oh? Yeah, you
want to put the the bamboo has plastic on it,
and then the rice goes on the plastic like suran
rapp or something. Yeah. Basically you just take suran wrap
and and just cover both sides of your bamboo mat
with that. Uh. And then of course there's the One
(44:54):
of my favorite things to eat at sushi places is
the hand roll. Yeah, the tim aki. It's like a
nice cream cone of sushi. Yeah, and you can make those.
I've never had a lot of success with making those, Um,
it does seem like the easiest, aren't they Not? For me.
I never got it to come out right. But you
make it in your hand. That's why it's called a
hand roll. You hold the norri and you spread the
rice on one end, cover about a third of it,
(45:15):
and then you put your toppings diagonally. You're gonna fold
your bottom corner up over the toppings and then roll
it in the same direction. And just picture a waffle
cone and that's what you're trying to emulate. And stick
some soft shell crab in that mug and chow down.
Wants Do you like set shell crab? You ever had that?
(45:37):
I don't think so. I like crab. I mean that's
when it's the whole crab is just fried shell and all.
Oh no, I've not had that. Yeah, it's good. In fact,
when I was in d C, I went to uh
a little that farmer's market at eighth and I they'll
tell you about, and they had this place of some
like crab cakes and soft shell crabs. Tich, so good
(45:58):
is the crab season? Now? I don't know it's crab season.
That day for me, I got one more thing from
the book The Story of Sushi by Trevor Corson just
some surprising sushi facts. I think most of these we
actually covered. Uh. They said in Japan they eat me
so at the end of the meal to aid digestions
(46:20):
and have an appetizer soup. Yeah, I've never knew that.
I like the miso soup though. Yeah, that's good stuff. Um.
And it says American chefs have probably never eaten a
proper nagiri because sushi chef's packet too tightly on purpose,
because Americans like it that way. Apparently it's looser. And
have you ever did you experience that was a looser
(46:41):
in Japan? Um, I've had a looser here? Oh yeah,
like the nice places. I mean you can you can
tell us by look it's not You would never point
to it and be like, that's a dense lump of rice, right,
Like you can see like a few of the individual grain.
You can see the detail in the rice a little more.
You can find it here. Yeah yeah. Uh. And his
(47:02):
final little fact, he said that the knives used by
sushi chefs are direct descendants of samurai swords a k
A katana. Did not know that. I didn't know that either.
There's one more fact in there I thought was interesting.
Of all of the bluefin tuna caught in the world,
is used for sushi. Oh really, yes, And the other
is grilled rare, not on a salad. I don't know
(47:24):
what they do with the other. Two million dollars per man.
That's a lot per pound, Yeah, was it that? It
had to have been the size of the fish and
the quality of that fish too, I would guess y, yeah,
because I mean, the guys at the Tokyo fish market
know what they're doing when it comes to fish, you know.
I would imagine they don't just look at some aged
(47:46):
rickety um tuna and say, like, how much do you
want for that? You know what I mean? Yeah, So
let's figure this out real quick, Chuck. Are you're dividing it? Yeah?
So one point eight million dollars yeah, yeah, divided by
four ninety pounds. Is that what you said? Remember that's
three thousands, six hundred and seventy three dollars in rounding
(48:09):
up forty seven cents a pound. Wow, that must have
been one special tuna. Yeah. Man, at the very least
he felt special when cut him up. I got nothing else. Well,
we could probably sit here for five six hours and
talk about this, but we're not going to. Instead, if
you want to learn more about sushi, you can type
that into the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
(48:31):
And I said, search parts means it's time for listener man.
I'm gonna call this amputation feedback. Hey, guys, I was
interested in how amputation works, and I thought i'd share
an offshoot topic and one of my classes we studied
a procedure called rotation plasty, which is an infrequent operation
occurs when only part of the limb requires amputation, like
a bone tumor in the lower part of the femur
(48:53):
or upper tibia tibia excuse me. Traditionally, it's done on
lower extremities, although a few upper extremity cases exist UH.
The operation consists of removing a portion of the leg,
ranging anywhere along the femur into the tibia fibular region,
ultimately removing the knee. The ankle joint is still functional,
so the surgeon removes all the muscle and bone, keeping
the nerves that connect the two regions intact. The foot
(49:15):
and ankle are then turned around to face backwards and
reattached along the femur. I feel like we talked about that.
I do too. It may not have been in that one,
or maybe maybe it was. But the reason the foots
placed backwards is because it didn't have the stability for
it to be. It adds more stability, now, is that
what it is? Yeah, she said the ankle becomes the
(49:36):
new knee joint and results in a high range of movement,
which helps many patients continue active lifestyles. Yeah, we definitely
talked about that. Well, this isn't news to us then. Uh.
The end result is it looks really strange but gives
a huge opportunity for the patient at least. Check out
some of the crazy images. So Kelly Crabbits of the
Colorado School of Minds go forty niners. Apparently we discussed that,
(50:01):
but at any rate, it's still interesting. Yeah, thanks a lot, Kelly, Kelly.
Thanks Kelly. If you want to describe in greater details
something we mentioned briefly, we are always happy for that
kind of thing. You can tweet to us at s
Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com slash stuff you should know. You can send
us an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works
(50:23):
dot com and join us at our beautiful home on
the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it How
stuff Works? Dot com
Welcome to stuff you should know Frondhouse stuff works dot com. Hey,
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as
always is the dour Charles w Chuck Bryant and Jerry,
who's snortling over there, which is kind of like a
(00:24):
like a laughing through your nose. What I thought, dour?
I thought it meant like a gloomy or something. Yeah,
you seem a little bluemy today. No, do you think
the smile is space? Yeah? That one, man. I wish
I had a picture of that. We could put that
on a T shirt, and then I could wear that
(00:44):
T shirt, and then you could get a picture of
me wearing that T shirt and put that on a
T shirt and wear that T shirt and so on
and so forth. It would be like Ryan Gosling and
mcaul yep. That to Beau this time though? This time? Yeah, alright, alright,
(01:04):
you're always making me be Ryan Gossly. Who wants that? Nobody?
How are you? I'm good man, I gotta tell you so.
We're about to do sushi. By the way, this thing
made me really hungry. Oh my god, I want sushi
so bad now and have for days. Now. Just remember
the yawning episode and people are like, oh, I listen
(01:25):
to this and I yawn the entire time. Yeah, well,
prepared to want sushi everybody, Even if you don't like
sushi or never had sushi, I guarantee you you will
want sushi by the end of this or we will
give you your money back for this episode. So you've
had sushi, yeah, I mean it's one. It's one of
my favorite foods. I could live in Japan and eat
sushi every day. Yes, I'm going to Japan next year
(01:48):
and I plan on eating sushi every day. I would
have I would not get sick of it. No, No,
it'd be really tough to especially with the variety of
do you know everybody thinks sushi is basically like, um,
a little bite of rice with a bunch of ingredients
tucked in it or on top of it. Yeah, or
maybe it's like a little little lump of rice with
(02:08):
some you know, fish on under something. There's a whole
galaxy of sushi out there, especially when you go to Japan.
I mean, just prepared to have your mind blown. I mean,
you've had it before, but yeah, my buddy Jason lives
up it there and it's like, it's not like sushi
Avenue here, Indicator Georgia, does he ever mail you sushi?
It probably wouldn't stay very well. Um, but if you
(02:28):
figured out a way to stick it into one of
those live organ courier things, it would be great. Uh.
I don't think so well. You know, if you eat
raw sushi here, with the exception of tuna, and by
here I mean the United States, Um, it's not fresh.
It's been frozen by law except for tuna. And I
(02:52):
couldn't find out why tuna was the only exception, But
all fish that's intended to be served raw has to
be frozen. US frozen is fine, And then of course
thought back out, but it can't just be from the
ocean to your plate. Yeah, and before the pedantic ones
among you start emailing, Josh said sushi when he was
talking about raw fish and infects, Sushi is rice and
(03:15):
that is sushimi, using the colloquial exactly. When people say, hey,
let's go out for sushi, it's like a a genre
of food, like hey, let's go out for Italian and
you don't go and they say, actually, that's a Sicilian
item of food. Yeah, if this is ringing true to
(03:36):
you and it's reminding you of yourself. Take a take.
You need to do some personality changes. If this is
your friend, then you should surround yourself with higher quality
people in that. Yeah, I mean go out for sushi.
That means you can have me so soup, and that
means going out for sushi and you can have uh
like at a mammy and a seaweed salad. And that's
all part of the experience that's going out for sushi
(03:59):
yah and this country it basically is shorthand for Japanese.
You're going out for Japanese, yes, sort of, but not hibachi.
Habachi is not Japanese. Is strictly a Rocky Aoki American. Yes,
I mean they do have habaski girls and stuff like that,
but the experience, the benni hana version totally American invention.
(04:20):
I've never been to one of those places. Oh yeah,
I mean it's like there's a guy like chopping and
cooking and and like tossing stuff into his hat and everything. Alright,
So chuck Um, thank you for pointing out the sushi thing,
because I am going to do that a lot. And
we should say when if you are specifically talking about
sushi in Japan. You're talking about. Um. Vinegard rice is
(04:44):
roughly what the word means, medium or short grain. The
stuff that's on top, Um, the neta, which is a
fish seafood topping that you put on sushi is actually
that raw fish is called sashimi like you said it. Yeah,
you can eat that by itself as well. If it's
fried stuff, it's called tempura. Yeah. Different types of sushi
(05:06):
have different kinds of names. But UM, let's get into this,
shall we. Let's let's talk about the history, because this
whole thing didn't even start in Japan. Yeah, it's pretty interesting, uh.
I mean, if you look at sushi, there's a lot
of folklore surrounding it, Um, a lot of mysterious origins. Um.
One of the old wives tales from Japan is that
funny It just appeared out of nowhere one day, mysteriously.
(05:29):
Uh No, it just means it can't be there now,
I'm just teasing. You're joshing, I am josh in the chuck.
That's right. Uh. There's an old Japanese wives tale about
an elderly lady who would hide her rights from thieves
and osprey nests, and she would forget where they were,
and they would ferment the rice wood and then the
seafood that the osprey would eat would fall down in there,
(05:50):
and waila, that was the first sushi. Yes, that's a
great story. But it's a lie. Yeah, not necessarily, it's not.
It's not a lies folklore, which are lies. I guess
it's told by old ladies. Very harsh way to say it. Um.
So there's the The earliest sushi supposedly was around in
in Southeast Asia, in I don't know, years ago. They
(06:15):
were taking cooked rice which does ferment, and packing fish
in it, and then the fermentation of the rice, yeah,
I kept it long before refrigeration, but it also kind
of pickled the fish. But then once the fish was
pickled over the course of like weeks, and they would
place it under like a heavy stone or something like
that to basically compress it. And once the once the
(06:36):
fish was pickled, they throw the rice out and to
seat the fish. Yes, and in fact, a sushi kitchen
can be called a suki bar or a pickling place.
That's bam. The original version of sushi was basically fermented
fish that was fermented with rice. Pickled fish fermented with rice.
Then they threw the rice out. Somebody said, well, wait
(06:57):
a minute, does this rice taste like, Oh my god,
this is delicious, And what would it taste like if
I put this fermentued fish on the rice? And they went,
oh my god, this is even better. So they said, well,
let's try this a different way. If we're not gonna
throw the fish or throw the rice out, let's actually
gut the fish. And this is the tenth century, by
the way, and by now this is in Japan. Um,
(07:19):
let's get the fish, soak it in saki, which is
Japanese rice wine, and then pack that thing full of
rice and let that ferment and then after a few
weeks we'll just slice it and then eat that. Yeah,
And each each of these steps basically is speeding the
process up a lot. Like the very first process took
(07:40):
about a year and a half, did it And it
was only for like the uber wealthy. Once they added sake, though,
that speeded that up. That speeded that up, and that
stuff still around. It's called nara sushi or rice sushi. Yeah,
I'm sorry, ripe sushi, and apparently you can still get that.
And it's a little like for your American taste buds.
It might taste a little funny, but I'll bet once
you get used to you're like, this is I have
(08:01):
to have us all the time. Probably so. Uh So.
Then in the sixteen hundreds, early sixteen hundreds of Japanese
military leader name Tokugawa Aye Yasu. We're gonna do our
best with these Japanese pronunciations. Yes, give us a break. Uh.
He moved the capital from Kyoto to Ito, which would
later become Tokyo, and by the nineteenth century it was
(08:22):
a hoppin city. And in the mid seventeen hundreds they
sped up that process a little bit more by skipping
the saki and using rice vinegar, yeah, which made it
like a matter of days after that for a couple hours, right, yeah,
which is what I was following up with, Yeah, which
is I mean that's super quick, and then you would
(08:43):
fly set into pieces and uh again just cutting that
preparation time. Yeah. And then in um Kyoto, which was
the former uh seat of power in Japan before it
was moved to Ato or Tokyo, um they would take
that vinegar and in some ingredients maybe a little cucumber,
a little dried seaweed, which is known as nori, and
(09:04):
they put it in a box and press it together
and you'd have oshi sushi, which is Osaka style sushi.
It's it's like a square of sushi, right. And there
was a guy who lived in Ato in Tokyo in
the eighteen twenties, and his name was Yohei Hanaya, and
he had a little cart where he was making oshi
(09:25):
sushi and everybody liked it and all that. But apparently,
as the story goes, some of his customers were like,
I'm very busy and important and I don't have time
for you to press this into a box. That's hurry up.
Make it snappy. So he took some of that rice,
that vinegar flavored rice, and rolled it up in his
hand a little bit, and then he would take some
fish that was taken out of Tokyo bay or Edo.
(09:45):
May I mean. He was set up right there on
the water exactly, and he cut off a little bit
of slice and put it in there, maybe with the
streak of a sabi, and handed it to the He said, here, jerk,
is that fast enough? That took me like three minutes exactly,
And they said, well, by god, this is Japanese street food.
That is fast food that we can use our hands
for and eating two bites and nigiri sushi. Uh, what
(10:08):
a lot of people think of as sushi was born.
The modern sushi was born right there in that food stall,
that's right. And then the Great Canto earthquake hit Tokyo
and land prices went down, and all of a sudden
there was a lot of retail space, and so the
sushi car said, hey, maybe we should move these things
inside and started a legit restaurant. And it happened all
(10:28):
over the place, and by the nineteen fifties it was
the sushi restaurant was where it was at. Yes, basically
in the nineteen thirties, yes, to refrigeration, you could chip fish.
By the seventies and the post war economy, people were
loving the stuff. So it started to boom in other
like all over Japan, and then started to spread to
(10:49):
other parts of the world. It did, and in the
United States it was first adopted in the sixties in
Los Angeles. Of course it was Los Angeles. There was
a place called Kawa Fuku and that was the first
big American embraced um sushi restaurant in the United States.
And and then the yuppies came, and you think, like
(11:10):
eighties in sushi, right, I do, I always have, Yeah,
But apparently it wasn't until like the nineties that sushi
really hit New York. And it was because of a
unknown man named Robert de Niro who who talked the
chef of Nobu, whose name is uh Nobu Yuki Matsu.
(11:34):
I'm gonna be in so much trouble when I get home.
So de Niro talked the chef of Nobu, Nobu Yuki Matsushisa.
I think that's it. It's really close, if not to
open Nobu, which was already an l A icon in
New York in So apparently sushi didn't hit New York
big time until the nineties, even though I think of
(11:55):
it like total American psycho fodder. Yeah, I mean it
was a sound I think it probably the explosion didn't.
I mean, it was very much a California thing. Um.
That first restaurant was a little tokyo in l A.
And then in the seventies they opened one in Hollywood
called Oshow in nineteen seventy and that was you know,
that was when the celebrity started going and they was like, oh,
(12:17):
Oh my god, this is so exotic and delicious and
I could eat it every day. And um, something really
really big happened in nineteen seventy three. Um, there was
a place in Los Angeles, uh, and there was a
sushi chef there. His name was Manashita, and Manashita created
an inside out roll a maki which is maki sushi
(12:40):
is a hand roll or no, it's a role that
used a bamboo mat for We'll get into it. So
was it inside out a regular inside out maki roll
with avocado, crab and cucumber, that's right, yes, okay. And
he made the California role and that became the entree,
Like that's the gateway drug to sushi for a lot
(13:00):
of Americans. Yeah, because it doesn't have the raw fish
in there. If you're creeped out by that, it's like
you can start on the California roll and be like, oh,
this is just sort of like a salad, all right,
And then once you go and eat California rolls enough times,
you're like, well, maybe I will try a bite of that,
and once you do, you're never going back. It's like
I can still lead a California roll like a bite
(13:20):
of it or something like that. But I'm more like,
that's a waste of sushi, Like I want I want
good nagiri or yeah, if I've got that, I'll put
that six dollars towards something else. Yeah, but I'll make
a California roll at home because it's uh, oh you
making my home. Yeah, And well we'll get we'll get
to all that. So Chuck, that's the history of sushi
(13:40):
up to right now. Now, um, yeah, let's let's talk
about fish in a second. Let's take a message break first. Okay,
(14:01):
so we're talking about fish. Raw Fish is a common
ingredient when you go to a sushi restaurant. But if
you're not into that, there are plenty of other offerings.
You've talked about tempora, We talked about the California California roll.
You can that can be uh, you can use veggies.
This article says virtually any type of vegetable, but completely
disagree with that. Yeah, Like you're not gonna roll up
(14:22):
broccoli or cauliflower and sushi, are you? No? But man,
I am crazy for ground up cauliflower as like a
rice substitute or something like that, or like massed potato
substude like collie taters, like puade califlower so good. Yeah.
I've been making collie taters for years, dude. I spend
my entire life up until like a couple of months ago,
(14:45):
hating cauliflower. I never told you about collie taters. No,
I've heard of it before. I just never really tried it.
But you mean, and I like started making it, and
I'm like, wow, this is good. Yeah, and it's you know,
I hate it when people say he's just like something.
It doesn't taste just thing, but it's it's got its consistency,
then it's good. Right. It mimics the consistency, not the taste. Yeah,
(15:07):
but the taste isn't too far off. I mean, yeah,
it doesn't taste like rotted horsemeat compared to like mashed
potatoes or something. But I think it's like it's its
own distinct thing it is. So that's my treatise on cauliflower. Yeah.
You won't put cauliflower in your sushi though, but you
can find asparagus and sushi fairly frequently. YEA cucumber, Uh, well,
(15:29):
I guess that's it. No, there's some more stuff. Mushrooms.
Oh yeah, mushrooms it's a big staple of a lot
of sushi. That was the third one. Yeah, it's some
nice shitakis boom. Have you been to Umi Sushi yet? Uh? Now,
it is amazing. Yeah. The one I've been on lately
is um shoot. I can't think of the name of
it now, uh me so I think is the name
(15:53):
of it in the old fourth word. And it's good,
little pricey but you know, oh yeah, Misosakaya. Yeah yeah, yeah,
it's supposed to be real good. It's good stuff. It's
more um it's like new veau sushi, which I guess
Umi Sushi is kind of. But they have like a
like an old traditional sushi chef running the place there.
Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean in America, you're gonna find
some variations. And in fact, the inside out roll apparently
(16:16):
is a totally American thing, even though it has now
since found its way over to Japan. But it did
not originate in Japan, right, No, the reverse roll or
inside out it was like an echo that came back
by storm. And if you don't know what we're talking about,
that's when the rice is on the outside of the
roll and the nori is on the inside instead of
the other way around. Yes, alright, so Chuck, if you argue,
(16:38):
use fish or you're ordering at a a sushi place.
The most of the fish are gonna see is um
salt water see see fish. Yeah, you don't want to
trout roll No. And the reason why it is because
freshwater fish are much more prone to parasites. The saltwater fish.
Parasites don't like salt as much. Right, yeah. Um, But
(17:01):
occasionally you will see a freshwater seafood. There's like a
type of eel that's really good, that's fresh water. Yeah,
I love the eel. Is always get the two eels confused,
and I always get like, after all these years, I
still can't commit it to memory, and about every third
time order the wrong one. Oh really, I don't think
I've ever had the saltwater eel. Yeah. I mean it's
(17:22):
not bad, of course, but I like the like the
freshwater more. Yeah, I do too. And you can buy
I make that's one of the ones that make at home.
You can there's a great Japanese market over by the
farmer's market and you can buy it and the refrigerator
and they make it in the oven. And yeah, because
that's the thing. If you order the freshwater eel like
it does. It doesn't come raw like it's seared or
something like that. Yeah, it's like a seared then like
(17:43):
a karyaki sauce. So delicious it is. Man, you know
it's okay. So you're gonna have freshwater fish, yeah, um
or freshwater seafood most of the time, saltwater saltwater, thank
you man and um. One of the most highly prized
seafood that you're going to find in sushi of any
(18:04):
type is tuna. And there's different types of tuna. Um.
They they'll they'll use a yellow finn, big guy, blue
fine and blue finn is the most expensive one. And
apparently it wasn't until the fifties that the Japanese came
to prize bluefin. Like before they used it for caffood.
Like they wouldn't even eat that stuff. Yeah, that's what
I heard, Like the belly is was originally and now
(18:26):
it's like the prize and the belly now or used
to be, like they wouldn't eat it. Yeah. Actually, the
record for the highest priced fish ever sold I believe
anywhere um was sold at the Tokyo Fish Market last year.
It was a four ninety pound blue fin tuna. How
much at one point eight million dollars, Holy crap for
(18:46):
just that tuna. And I guarantee they made their money.
And then something man, yeah, that's a big tuna. I
feel kind of bad for that guy, even though I
love to eat him so much. The tuna, well, there's
definitely a moral thread that runs through tuna or not sushi,
like apparently yellow fin tuna. Farm raised tuna or raised
a lot like veal and fatten until their muscles deteriorate
(19:06):
alive um and and then of course there's the have
you seen the raw or live frog video? There is
a type of sushi that is it's called um iki zukuri,
which is live sushi, and there's an iki zukuri video.
(19:27):
And if you have a light stomach at all or
anything like that, are bothered by animals being killed, like
you should not watch this. But the point is you
eat the thing while it's basically part of it is
still alive on the plate looking at you like this
frog is sitting there blinking. It's a frog. There's a frog.
(19:48):
And I can't remember what the other one is, but
there's they showed two things being prepared. It's not. Have
you have you seen Old Boy the original? Remember he
eats that squid live, that's a that's live sushi. Wow,
Like that was real. Yeah, not for me, And yeah
you get pretty adventurous. That would you do that? Probably
just to try it? Yeah, I mean it's just like,
(20:11):
I know everything is killed that we eat, right, but
it's just like, I don't know being confronted with it.
Who knows that. I can imagine some of the people
who are into like that slow food movement are like, well, yeah,
that's the way you should do it. You should have
to confront the death while you eat. No. I mean
a lot of people would say it's hypocritical to not
do that, you know, right, but a lot of butte
(20:32):
a lot of people are comfortable with that. Emily won't
eat anything that reminds her of an animal, Like she
didn't even like bones in her chicken. Yeah. Uh. And
like if someone surved her a fish with a head
on it, like fully cooked, she would just be like, no, no, no, no,
that fish is looking at me. It's like the duck
in a Christmas story. Yeah he's smiling. Uh. Okay, So
(20:55):
we're talking about tuna. Tuna is delicious salmon is delicious
yellow tail and hamachi and surf clam, and there's all
sorts of delicious seafood that you can get on your
sushi or in your rolls, and then you just spread
out from there. If there's a fried chicken in there,
it might be a little too Americanized, although that's what
you're into, then great, well it would be considered temporal
(21:18):
chicken in that case. Yeah, but yeah, come on, if
there's fried chicken and mayonnaise rolled up in rice, then
that sounds kind of good. Well, I know, but it's
is it sushi? Well, Rogers Roasters. I feel like there's
been kind of you know, there's definitely a traditional thread
of sushi, right, yeah, I don't know, mind mixing it
up a little bit, and there's like traditional preparations and
(21:40):
then there's traditional ingredients. But then it's like you said,
you know, in the seventies, when the California role was
made here in America, it was sent back and now
you can get a California role pretty much anywhere in Japan,
and it's expanded from there. So I think, yeah, I
think sushi is kind of this evolving thing. I've seen
cereals added have you seen that like corn flakes or
(22:01):
rice crispies on top. Yeah, I'm not into that either
for crunch, yeah, or or or squirting a bunch of
sauce on top. I'm not a big fan of that either. Yeah. Well,
that's another thing that we'll talk about when we talk
about how to eat sushi. But really there's a lot
of sushi that's prepared that you're not supposed to do
anything to except eat. Yeah. So I guess we should
(22:23):
finish what can be in sushi thing by mentioning uh
row and tomago row is the fish eggs like a
little delicious orange. It's almost like caviar. Yeah, And there
can be little tiny ones and larger ones. I'm sure
there's a difference in the name. Do you know I
didn't look that up. No, Cherry's nodding. Is there a
difference in the name. I'm sure it's not necessarily by size,
(22:45):
but probably by fish. Yeah. I think the smelt row
is the smaller m I think so, Yeah, the little
little tiny beads. Yeah, and that's usually added with a
roll or on top of something, and the other larger ones.
A lot of times that's just wrapped in the nori
and that's all you're eating. Yeah, Or there's just like
one on top of the thing. Oh yeah, like a
little bead huh for presentation. Yeah, I want to say,
(23:05):
a coil egg on top of legs. Yesterday this was raw.
I didn't realize it was gonna be raw. I ate
it anyway, Like you said, I'm adventurous, but man, I
was like, I'm never ordering that again. No, I'm not
too big on raw eggs um except strangely in like
(23:26):
a tataki or um carpaccio or something like that. Yeah. Yeah,
I that's weird. I guess I guess I'll just have
to keep ordering it them, whether I like it or not. Alright,
Tomago is egg in sushi. But it is cooked and
it's like it's an it's an omelet. It's it's it's
made by adding little layers of egg. I've seen some
(23:46):
people like bake it in a pan. It's probably the
shortcut method. There's probably more traditional method. But um it's
almost like because it's sweet umlet, it's almost like a
dessert sushi. Yeah. And that's it's like an inch stick
and a slice and you put it on some sushi
rice with a little band of nori tied around it,
and that's delicious as well. Half avocado, so you say
(24:08):
it avocado? Uh, that is very popular, and that means
tuna of the land in Japan. Yeah, that's the the
word for avocado means tuna of the land. It's pretty cool. Yeah,
avocado is like a great addition to anything. Yeah, I agree,
and very good for you too. It really is the
good fat, yes, yeah, good for your heart and your brain. Um.
(24:29):
What else goes along with sushi? The soy sauce to
show you. Yeah, it's the type of soy sauce, and
like you can. You can dip your sushi and soy
sauce if you prefer, But you're supposed to use it
very sparingly. Yea. And supposedly you're not supposed to dip
the rice either. No, I drown it. I'm just you
want to talk about how to eat sushi the propper way? Uh? Sure, Okay,
(24:53):
I don't do it, that's fine. Yeah, a lot of
people eat with chopsticks. Yeah. Supposedly it's an insult to
the sushi chef to drown your sushi and rice. Yes, um,
And where would I be without you? Just staying wrong
stuff here and there. Um. So basically, let's say you
have a piece of naguri, which is just a little
(25:14):
lump of sushi with um like some some topping on it,
say tuna. Uh, you kind of lightly grabbed the nagii
on one side, on both sides with your fingers. Yes,
you don't need to use chopsticks. Sushi was originally a
finger food and um, you can feel free to eat
it the traditional way using your hands. Um. So you
(25:37):
grab the sides kind of lightly but firmly, you tilt
it over. You tilt this out, You tilt the naguri over,
and then you just basically have it. So you're grabbing,
you're holding onto the tuna and holding it almost like
a basket, so the rice is on top and the
tuna is on the bottom. You just flipped your sushi over.
If you want a little bit to show you, you
can just kinda just barely like pass it through to
(26:01):
show you the soy sauce, just the tip, yes, yeah,
of just the seafood. Yeah, you're not supposed touch the
rice to it. Yeah, that's what I hear. You take
um one bite, depending on the size you can put
the whole thing in your mouth and eat it. But
you want to put it the topping side down, and
then if it's a big piece of nigiri, then um,
(26:21):
you can bite it and then eat it in two pieces.
All right, here's Chuck's method. I take it and I
dump the entire thing and a big bowl of soy sauce,
and then I pull it out and I stick it
in my mouth and chew it up and eat it
all and then I wash it down with the supporo.
Well that's customary. I'm a happy guy. You would probably
(26:42):
like chio rashi sushi, which is basically a bowl of
rice with sushi toppings. Yeah, I could. I could be
down with that. Is there the nori in there? Though?
Because I love the nori? I think everything you want
in there, whatever kind of sushi you want, it's just
like in a bowl. It's just like a KFC bowl.
But yeah, or oh man, what are those awful beef
(27:03):
bull places out west Yoshi Naki or something beef bull
like in the shopping malls. Yeah, I know what you're
talking about. I can't remember the name of them. Are
they not good? Well? I mean, you get you tell me,
you get like a three pound beef and rice bowl
for like three dollars. Oh, that sounds good. I don't
think it's They're known for their high quality meats. So
(27:24):
by beef, I mean cat yoshin nori. What is it called.
It's a chain. They're all over l A. Yeah, I
know you don't talking about I don't think they have
them here in Georgia. Uh, well, sabi. I don't do
the wasabi just because I don't like the taste. Um.
I know most people like to put it in their
soy sauce and mix it up. Apparently that is an
(27:44):
insult as well. Uh, it's it's abnormal. That's what Yumi
does though. Yeah, she puts in the sauce, puts a
lot of it in there. Yeah, so does Emily. She
loves that stuff. But the thing is is most sushi
is going to already have a little streak of wasabi
on top of the rice, beneath the topping. Yeah, so
you don't necessarily need any. And if you've ever wondered
why your nostrils are suddenly clear and you're breathing very
(28:08):
easily even though you didn't use any with sabby, it's
because it was already on there. Yeah. And here in
the United States, you're not eating with sabi anyway. Nope,
although you can get it at Umi sushi really, but
it's gonna cost you. Yeah, So that's the fact of
the podcast. For me. What you're eating is horse radish
and mustard paste that's dyed green, and they call it
(28:29):
was saby was sabi. When people say it's Japanese horse radish,
it actually isn't even horse radish. It's it's in that fan.
It's like a cousin of horse radish. And it is
expensive that goes by the river and you're eating the root.
It lives in a van down by the river. But
uh yeah, apparently it's so pricey. Like you're you're you've
probably never had real was sabi unless you're like high
(28:50):
falutin like you and go to fancy sushi places. Yes,
I'm sure noboo has real with saby. I just like
a little gentleman. I wear a velvet jacket and velvet
shorts with knee socks, which is a little hack, and
they saying, well, they served me it's wonderful. Well, that's
funny that you mentioned that, because being a sushi chef
(29:11):
in Japan, you're also supposed to be kind of part performer.
It's very social thing to sit at the sushi bar. Yeah,
you're you're not necessarily performing like at a habachi place.
It's not like that you're performing at a clown. You're
you're you're just you're friendly. Yeah, you're helpful. You want
the person to feel like they are welcome and that
(29:32):
they they are being led in on your expertise. Yeah,
like ask if you've never been and you want to
try it out, sit at the sushi bar and ask.
I like it anyway, just because I like to watch it.
But um asked the chef like, hey man, what's what's
good today? And I say, hey man, Because there's still
a lot of discrimination, um in Japan, even with women
(29:53):
becoming sushi chefs. Oh yeah, it's still a thing. Yes,
it is, chuck, Yeah, which is no good. Um. And apparently,
regardless of your gender, if you're a sushi chef, UM,
you are required to work at least two years if
you're working at a decent sushi place. Yeah. It sounds
like a lot, but it used to be ten. Yeah,
(30:14):
but well, two years just to learn to make the rice,
and then another year of training with a knife. Yes, okay,
and that's in Japan. Here in America they're turning them
out because there's just such a need, right. But once
you're a trained sushi chef, like you can become a
journeyman and like go anywhere in the world these days
and open your own place. Man. I'm so um have
(30:37):
you seen Zero Dreams of Sushi? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, that's
highly recommended. I think that's streaming on Netflix too. Um.
And you recommended that, I think to me for the
first time. Yeah. We went and saw in the theaters.
It was good. Yeah, it was really good. I mean
it's it's about wanting sushi. Yeah, And you don't have
to like sushi. If you just appreciate art and craftsmanship
and being the best at something, you should written that movie.
(31:00):
And family too. It's kid like. It's it's the man
and his two sons. I think Giro has been making
sushi for like seventy years or something like that, and
his two sons are following in his footsteps. And it's
really um uh intimate documentary about that family totally. So
we talked a little bit or I mentioned drinking a
(31:20):
nice cold sapporo. Um. People, I don't like sak myself. Um,
I just don't dig the rice wine. But that is
a big thing for a lot of people when they
go out to eat sushi is to drink sake. But
apparently because it is rice based and that your sushi
is rice based, it doesn't compliment one another. So you
technically shouldn't be drinking sake as you eat the sushi.
(31:42):
I think it's a lot like putting with sabi in
the soy sauce. Just do what you want. Yeah, well,
all this stuff is, of course, as long as you're
not insulting the sushi chef overtly and calling him things
like sense and stuff like that, really buttering him up,
I think you're doing. Okay, did people do that? I'm
sure they do. I haven't yet, but it's probably a
(32:02):
good idea. All right. Um, they recommend like green tea,
light beer, even water. But again, drink whatever you want.
But if you're drinking sake, supposedly you're not supposed to
pour your own. You're supposed to pour your buddies and
then they pour yours. Yeah, and this is if you're
going you know, you want to be traditional, sure, but
it makes saki for sharing by definition, by that um
(32:25):
one more a oh yeah, yeah, Like if you can't
pour your own sake, you're up the creek. If you're
just drinking it by yourself, what are you gonna ask
like a stranger? Sure, make a buddy, make a new
friend in Japan. Now, all right, we're gonna talk a
little bit about how to make sushi right after this message.
(32:56):
All right, so you've never made sushi. I'm surprised you
guys haven't tried it. I've never sushi, you know, well
I have, I haven't done it in a while. But
you can get your nori sheets and grocery stores. I
eat that stuff like a snack. Yeah, of course. Uh,
you can find your little crabsticks and cucumber. And where
it gets a little tricky is um is the fish itself. Like,
(33:18):
if you live in a big city, there's probably a
place where you can get sushi grade fish. If you
live out in the sticks, you might have a harder time,
but you definitely want to get sushi or sashimi grade
fish um and ask if it is sashimi grade um.
Like we said, no fresh water. You don't want to
trout roll no, and you want it to be nice
and vibrant color. Yeah. You don't want there to be
(33:40):
any weird like dark or soft spots. No, that's rot. Yeah,
the tuna should be like really bright red um or
pink yeah, like dark pink. Yeah, I mean you can
if you know how to spot it. You know the difference,
like if you get a little practice. Yeah. And if
you're not like Emily and you're buying the whole fish,
you want the eyes to be like not sunken in.
(34:02):
You want them to be like still just kind of
popping out, like, oh my gosh, I'm I can't believe
this is happening kind of eyes, you know. Yeah. It
shouldn't smell too fishy either. If it smells superfishy, that
means it's probably not super fresh. But once you have
your fish and you bought your nori, you want to
buy your rice. That's the first key ingredient you need
(34:23):
to master. And like we said, in Japan, they spent
two years learning how to make the rice properly. So
don't beat yourself up if it doesn't go well at first. No. Um,
but the the the rice you're making, you want to
start with sushi rice, which is a short or medium
grain rice and if you go to the store to
buy rice, like you go to a um Asian food
market or something like that, they're gonna have rice that
(34:46):
says sushi rice. And it's gonna come out like like
you want it. You're gonna be clumpy, it's not gonna
be like mushy. It's gonna be nice and sticky white rice. Well,
if you make it right right, you can mess it
up pretty bad. And I've learned, Um, I use col Rose.
That's something here in the United States you can look for. Yeah,
it's a real popular I think that started in California.
(35:07):
Um it's another one when we eat all the time,
is I think, um, oh, it's like Nische I believe.
Is that like the brand brand? Yeah, cal Rose is
a variety, so it may be a cal Rows. Still, Oh,
it's not a brand. I thought it was a brand.
That's a rice variety, a medium rain, medium range, medium grain.
So the key here when you're making the rice, there's
(35:29):
a lot of keys, but the first big key is
you don't just throw it in the pot and cook it.
You have to rinse it. And what I do what
my friend John, you know, chef John he Um, he
taught me to just put the rice, the dry uncooked
rice in a pot and start just a cold water,
like a slow cold water um run and just let
(35:53):
it go like walk away and the rice will kind
of stay at the bottom and the water will just
kind of overflow, but it'll that continuous walk our movement
and it's a little bit wasteful, you know, if you
don't like to leave your sink running or your water running.
But what you want to do is just rent to
the rice until the water is almost clear um and
you'll see it. It's real, real cloudy and kind of grainy,
(36:13):
and as you keep washing it, it'll clear up. And
you want to do with your hands and be gentle
with it. You don't want to mash it up. Don't
use a strainer because that can beat up the rice
pretty bad. Just treat it, treat it respectfully and sort
of wash it with your hands until the water is clear.
So that's step one. Then you got to soak it
for an additional half an hour in cold water. Just
(36:34):
walk away and leave it there. Then you're gonna add
uh half hours elapse. Okay, you should just sit here
for half um. After the half hour has elapsed, you
if you want, you can add a little sake to
it if you want. You can add something called dashi kanbu.
It's a dried kelp. I've never done that, but you can.
It makes it pop, does it? Okay? Uh? Then you're
(36:58):
gonna cook you know, I mean they'll probably say on
the package, but then you're gonna cook it a lot
like traditional rice. You boil it, cook it on a
medium heat with a pot on for about fifteen minutes,
then simmer for about twenty minutes over low heat. And
then they recommend here I've never heard of this, to
turn the heat up too high for a few seconds
at the end. I'm not sure what that does. I
(37:18):
think it maybe just like burns off any excess moisture.
That's what I would guess it does, all right, And
then leave the lid on and let it sit for
about fifteen minutes completely off the heat after that. All right,
So now the vinegar, right, you want to start with
rice vinegar. That's the kind you have to use, is
rice vinegar? Yeah? Appropriately enough? And you had no other
(37:41):
don't think like, oh, can you use apple cider vinegar
or white vinegar? You could use sushi vinegar, which is
prepared rice vinegar. But it's gotta be rice vinegar, right,
But if you want to make it yourself, you use
a little rice vinegar um about a quarter cup to
a table spoon of sugar and one and a half
teaspoons of salt. Yeah, and that's for five cups of rice. Right,
(38:01):
And you mix all that stuff up until the mixture
is clear, and you've got yourself some homemade sushi vinegar.
Once you're um, your rice is is ready. Yeah, you
want to turn it out into a bowl, is what
it's called. You dump it out into a bowl. Yeah,
And what you should get is and you probably bought
(38:22):
if you're trying to make sushi, probably bought a couple
of things like your little bamboo rolling mat and a
little wooden paddle they call it. And it's, you know,
basically a big flat spoon, and that is what you
use to turn it, um traditionally into a wooden bowl.
You can use anything but metal. Don't use metal, no,
because it will react with the vinegar. Yeah, that's no good.
You turn it out with the sushi paddle rice paddle, which,
(38:45):
by the way, you me and I have seen the
world's largest rice paddle. How big was it was big,
bigger than me. Uh, like as big as this table. No,
it was like the size of like a long canoe. Oh,
I said, the world's biggest rice paddle. Well I didn't that,
like I was trying to the flat part. Was it
as big as this table? Easily? Okay? In which for
(39:05):
everybody who's not in the room with us right now,
the table is probably about three three in diameter. Well
did they use the thing? I don't see how you could.
Or was it just one of the silly things, like
the world's biggest batchel? Of it? It was. It was
far from silly, but it was big. It was on
(39:26):
me and GiMA, which is a neat little island off
of Hiroshima, and they have the world's largest rice paddle display.
So you're gonna use that rice paddle to pry the
rice out of the pot into your wooden bowl. Uh,
and you know will come out kind of like a
like a cake almost before you, you know, start messing
with it. And then here's the thing. You don't just
(39:47):
dump this the vinegar that you've made all over the rice.
You want to pour it over the paddle and then
spread the paddle around over the rice. So it sort
of gently falls and distributes evenly, and then you want
to fold it in and then mix it together gently again,
make sure everything's coated pretty well, and then cool it
down to you're supposed to be fanning it while you're
(40:07):
doing this, and then cool it down to room temperature.
And then you're all set to go. And then you
want to take your hands and rinse them in vinegar
to prevent the rice from sticking just kind of lightly. Yeah,
you should have the paddle as well. Um, when you're
spreading it, you you need to soak that as well.
Really it works well, right um. And then you're ready
(40:28):
to start making nagari sushi, which is the easiest sushi
to make. Um, it's just basically finger sushi. You take
a little lump of rice and just kind of roll
it into an oblong shape in your hand. Uh, press
down one side on one side with a finger, and
that's the side that's going to be the bottom. So
basically you're adding stability and you don't want it super firm, um,
(40:51):
but you don't want it falling apart either, right Uh.
And then um, you take a little bit of a
save smear it on the top and then top it
with whatever ingredients you want, say, yeah, and they have
little molds by the way, if you don't feel like
you should try and make it in the palm of
your hand. But they do have little prefab molds that
you spoon the rice into and like you press a
(41:13):
little thing on top and then pop them out, which
would make it basically oshi sushi that osaka style. Remember
they have the press mold. Oh is that what it is? Yeah,
but there's a strictly like a box. Yeah. Yeah, this
is like eight little individual compartments. Yeah. There's shaped like
flowers and hearts and stuff like that too. I haven't
seen that. Oh yeah, oh yeah, mine's just rectangular. But
(41:35):
I don't use it. I did it first and then
I was like, no, I'm gonna try in the palm
of the hand. Have you ever made a nigiri um
sushi with like that? You were just like, this is perfect? No, No, yeah,
I guess it's just practice ten years at least. Yeah.
I mean it tastes fine, and they even point out
this article, it'll take some practice before it looks as
good as it tastes. The taste will be there, but
(41:56):
it's not what you're seeing the restaurant properly. You know
those guys are pros Yeah. Um, that was Nigeri sushi.
I just mentioned the little hand hand rolled fingerside pieces
and sushi. Yes, you can also make mokey yeah. And
that's when you take the full that's a sushi roll.
That's when you have the full sheet. Uh, you want
(42:17):
to spread about a third of it with a thin
coating of rice. And you want the norri shiny side
down onto the mat, the bamboo mat. Yeah. And so
you spread your rice. You don't want it super thick, yeah,
on top of the norri. And you know this is
a little bit of h if it's your first time,
there'll be some trial and air involved, you know, Like
I put way too much rice at first, and then
(42:39):
it was hard to roll and it looked like this
big burrito essentially, So you're gonna want the rice a
little thinner than you think even and then you uh
put it on the sheet. It's on the mat, and
you put your toppings across, kind of like you're making
a burrito, and then you fold the bamboo mat over
you roll the nori into the toppings. Um. And this
(43:01):
description feels a little convoluted. You basically just want to
roll it in the mat and I give it a
good squeeze at the end to make sure it's all
together and to let it know it's loved exactly. And
you want to I imagine this is another thing that
comes out with practice. Like you said, it first it
looks like a burrito. Um, but if you roll it,
and I would guess your hands need to be kind
(43:24):
of away from the center so that you're putting an
equal amount of pressure on the roll, and you're lightly
rolling it, being careful not to let the mat get
rolled up into the succi. Yeah, I've done that, just
rolling it over the top. But you're rolling the roll
together and then you got a little roll squeezed at
the end as per chuck. And then you take a
really sharp knife right and cut it in half. Then
(43:47):
you cut that in half and so on until you
have eight pieces, and my friend, you have a moki
sushi moki. Yeah. And like I said, it's a little
hard to describe. The best way to do it is
just to throw yourself in there and try it. And
if you've ever seen sushi rolls, then you're instinct will
kind of tell you how to do it and just
mess around. It's fun. Like, don't put pressure on yourself
to don't plan a big sushi dinner party on your
(44:10):
first dry Yeah, that's probably a good idea, you know,
just try it out yourself and then sorry. What we
just described was foodo maki. If you wanted to make
an inside out roll like a California roll, you would
be making what's called uromaki. And basically you follow the
same steps but just reversed. You start with the rice
and then you put the nori. You start with the
bamboo mat, then put the rice on that, then nori,
(44:32):
then your toppings, and then you roll that up. Did
you say it was covered in plastic? Oh? Yeah, you
want to put the the bamboo has plastic on it,
and then the rice goes on the plastic like suran
rapp or something. Yeah. Basically you just take suran wrap
and and just cover both sides of your bamboo mat
with that. Uh. And then of course there's the One
(44:54):
of my favorite things to eat at sushi places is
the hand roll. Yeah, the tim aki. It's like a
nice cream cone of sushi. Yeah, and you can make those.
I've never had a lot of success with making those, Um,
it does seem like the easiest, aren't they Not? For me.
I never got it to come out right. But you
make it in your hand. That's why it's called a
hand roll. You hold the norri and you spread the
rice on one end, cover about a third of it,
(45:15):
and then you put your toppings diagonally. You're gonna fold
your bottom corner up over the toppings and then roll
it in the same direction. And just picture a waffle
cone and that's what you're trying to emulate. And stick
some soft shell crab in that mug and chow down.
Wants Do you like set shell crab? You ever had that?
(45:37):
I don't think so. I like crab. I mean that's
when it's the whole crab is just fried shell and all.
Oh no, I've not had that. Yeah, it's good. In fact,
when I was in d C, I went to uh
a little that farmer's market at eighth and I they'll
tell you about, and they had this place of some
like crab cakes and soft shell crabs. Tich, so good
(45:58):
is the crab season? Now? I don't know it's crab season.
That day for me, I got one more thing from
the book The Story of Sushi by Trevor Corson just
some surprising sushi facts. I think most of these we
actually covered. Uh. They said in Japan they eat me
so at the end of the meal to aid digestions
(46:20):
and have an appetizer soup. Yeah, I've never knew that.
I like the miso soup though. Yeah, that's good stuff. Um.
And it says American chefs have probably never eaten a
proper nagiri because sushi chef's packet too tightly on purpose,
because Americans like it that way. Apparently it's looser. And
have you ever did you experience that was a looser
(46:41):
in Japan? Um, I've had a looser here? Oh yeah,
like the nice places. I mean you can you can
tell us by look it's not You would never point
to it and be like, that's a dense lump of rice, right,
Like you can see like a few of the individual grain.
You can see the detail in the rice a little more.
You can find it here. Yeah yeah. Uh. And his
(47:02):
final little fact, he said that the knives used by
sushi chefs are direct descendants of samurai swords a k
A katana. Did not know that. I didn't know that either.
There's one more fact in there I thought was interesting.
Of all of the bluefin tuna caught in the world,
is used for sushi. Oh really, yes, And the other
is grilled rare, not on a salad. I don't know
(47:24):
what they do with the other. Two million dollars per man.
That's a lot per pound, Yeah, was it that? It
had to have been the size of the fish and
the quality of that fish too, I would guess y, yeah,
because I mean, the guys at the Tokyo fish market
know what they're doing when it comes to fish, you know.
I would imagine they don't just look at some aged
(47:46):
rickety um tuna and say, like, how much do you
want for that? You know what I mean? Yeah, So
let's figure this out real quick, Chuck. Are you're dividing it? Yeah?
So one point eight million dollars yeah, yeah, divided by
four ninety pounds. Is that what you said? Remember that's
three thousands, six hundred and seventy three dollars in rounding
(48:09):
up forty seven cents a pound. Wow, that must have
been one special tuna. Yeah. Man, at the very least
he felt special when cut him up. I got nothing else. Well,
we could probably sit here for five six hours and
talk about this, but we're not going to. Instead, if
you want to learn more about sushi, you can type
that into the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
(48:31):
And I said, search parts means it's time for listener man.
I'm gonna call this amputation feedback. Hey, guys, I was
interested in how amputation works, and I thought i'd share
an offshoot topic and one of my classes we studied
a procedure called rotation plasty, which is an infrequent operation
occurs when only part of the limb requires amputation, like
a bone tumor in the lower part of the femur
(48:53):
or upper tibia tibia excuse me. Traditionally, it's done on
lower extremities, although a few upper extremity cases exist UH.
The operation consists of removing a portion of the leg,
ranging anywhere along the femur into the tibia fibular region,
ultimately removing the knee. The ankle joint is still functional,
so the surgeon removes all the muscle and bone, keeping
the nerves that connect the two regions intact. The foot
(49:15):
and ankle are then turned around to face backwards and
reattached along the femur. I feel like we talked about that.
I do too. It may not have been in that one,
or maybe maybe it was. But the reason the foots
placed backwards is because it didn't have the stability for
it to be. It adds more stability, now, is that
what it is? Yeah, she said the ankle becomes the
(49:36):
new knee joint and results in a high range of movement,
which helps many patients continue active lifestyles. Yeah, we definitely
talked about that. Well, this isn't news to us then. Uh.
The end result is it looks really strange but gives
a huge opportunity for the patient at least. Check out
some of the crazy images. So Kelly Crabbits of the
Colorado School of Minds go forty niners. Apparently we discussed that,
(50:01):
but at any rate, it's still interesting. Yeah, thanks a lot, Kelly, Kelly.
Thanks Kelly. If you want to describe in greater details
something we mentioned briefly, we are always happy for that
kind of thing. You can tweet to us at s
Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com slash stuff you should know. You can send
us an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works
(50:23):
dot com and join us at our beautiful home on
the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it How
stuff Works? Dot com
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