Sushi

• 1. Introduction

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  Sushi began, by one well known account, in a shop in Ryōgoku in 1824. A chef named Hanaya Yohei pressed vinegared rice into an oval by hand and draped a piece of seafood over the top. He called it nigiri-zushi. In Edo, the city now known as Tokyo, it caught on fast, a quick meal for the chōnin, the era's merchant and artisan class. Hanaya Yohei lived from 1799 to 1858, working during the Edo period, which ran from 1603 to 1867. What he served in his shop was already the end of a very long story, not the start of one. Centuries earlier, a dish called narezushi involved packing raw fish in rice and salt. It simply waited, sometimes for months, until the fish fermented enough to eat. At that point the rice itself was usually thrown away. How did a method built on discarding rice turn into a dish where the rice is the entire point? Why do some regions of Japan still keep that months long version alive today? And how did a food built around raw fish become one of the most eaten dishes anywhere on the globe?

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• 2. Preserved Fish, Sour Rice

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  Long before Japan had a word for sushi, communities in the Mekong River basin were already packing freshwater fish in rice. That basin is now Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. A similar method took hold along the Irrawaddy River basin, in present day Myanmar. The earliest known reference to this kind of fish appears in a Chinese dictionary thought to date to the fourth century. It describes fish salted and buried in cooked rice until fermentation set in. Related methods survive across the region today. They include burong isda in the Philippines and pekasam in Indonesia and Malaysia. Others are padaek in Laos, pla ra in Thailand, sikhae in Korea, and mắm in Vietnam.

  In Japan, the practice gained new urgency during the Yayoi period. The introduction of wet field rice farming meant paddies regularly flooded in the rainy season. Fish got trapped in the flooded fields. Pickling the surplus catch in rice became a technique called narezushi, meaning roughly matured fish. It turned a farming accident into a dependable source of protein. The dish's very name reflects the process. Sushi comes from an old, now obsolete conjugated form of a word meaning sour tasting, describing the tang lactic fermentation produced. A tribute record from the year 718 lists characters for this kind of fish. It was presented to the Japanese imperial court, evidence that some version of it had already reached the elite table.

  Narezushi never disappeared entirely. In Shiga Prefecture, a version called funa-zushi is still made from crucian carp. The authentic version uses the nigorobuna variety, native to Lake Biwa. A whole fish is salted, packed in a barrel, and weighted under a heavy pickling stone. It is left for six months before it becomes edible, and it keeps for six months more after that.

  During the Muromachi period, which lasted from 1336 to 1573, cooks developed a faster version called namanare, or partially fermented sushi. It marked a real shift in Japanese eating habits. Its fermentation ran shorter than narezushi's. Crucially, the rice was no longer discarded. Diners ate the fish and the rice together for the first time. Sushi shifted from a way of storing food into a dish in its own right. Afterward, cooks reached first for sake lees, chasing a faster route to that same sour taste. In the Edo period, they would reach for vinegar itself.

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• 3. Fast Food, Global Industry

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  A cookbook from 1689 is the earliest source to describe haya-zushi, literally quick sushi. The innovation let vinegar replace months of fermentation outright. Cooks mixed rice with vinegar, itself a fermented product, to produce a sour taste instantly. They set fish on top and served the dish the same day. A 1728 cookbook goes further, describing vinegar poured directly over a block shaped sushi. That sushi was pressed inside a wooden frame. Regional cooks folded in their own local ingredients. Many sushi styles found across Japan today trace back to inventions from this period.

  The rice mound in early nigiri was roughly three times the size of a modern piece. It looked quite different from what reaches a plate now. Cooks used only half as much vinegar, and leaned on extra salt instead of sugar. Their vinegar was also a distinct product, called akazu, a red vinegar made by fermenting sake lees rather than rice. Nakano Matazaemon developed that red vinegar. He went on to found Mizkan, a company that still sells vinegar and seasonings today. Because the fish came straight from Edo Bay, the dish was first called Edomae zushi. The phrase Edomae nigirizushi still signals top quality sushi today, regardless of where the fish actually comes from.

  In 1958, Yoshiaki Shiraishi opened a restaurant called Genroku Zushi in Higashi-Osaka. He set plates of sushi moving past customers on a conveyor belt. Diners were charged by the number of plates taken, color coded by price. The format got a major boost in 1970. Genroku Sushi opened a branch at the Japan World Exposition in Osaka and won an award there. Conveyor belt sushi restaurants became known across the country soon after. An automatic tea dispenser, developed in 1973, is still standard equipment in these restaurants today. Once the original conveyor belt patent expired, a chain of imitators spread the format nationwide. Prices fell, and sushi turned into an everyday meal. By 2021, the conveyor belt sushi market in Japan alone had grown to 700 billion yen. The format had also spread well beyond Japan's borders.

  James Hepburn's Japanese-English dictionary mentioned sushi as early as 1873, decades before conveyor belts ever existed. English speakers, it turns out, had a word for the dish long before that. An 1879 article on Japanese cookery ran in the journal Notes and Queries. The earliest mention the Oxford English Dictionary credits is an 1893 book called A Japanese Interior. It described sushi as a roll of cold rice with fish, seaweed, or other flavoring. Despite that description, English speakers commonly assume sushi simply means raw seafood, which is not what the word means at all.

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• 4. Countless Shapes

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  Chirashizushi skips the roll entirely. A chef fills a bowl with rice and scatters raw fish and vegetables over the top. It is popular partly because it is quick to make and quick to eat. Families serve it every year on Hinamatsuri in March and on Children's Day in May. Edomae chirashizushi, the Tokyo style, arranges uncooked ingredients artfully across the rice. Kansai's gomokuzushi instead mixes cooked or uncooked ingredients directly into the rice. In Kyushu, sake-zushi uses rice wine instead of vinegar. It is topped with shrimp, sea bream, octopus, shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots and shredded omelette.

  Inarizushi is sushi rice stuffed into a pouch of fried tofu. It is named for the Shinto god Inari, whose fox messengers are said to love fried tofu. Some regions even shape the pouch's corners to resemble fox ears. The shape varies by region too, a rectangle in the Kantō region around Tokyo, a triangle in Kansai. A Hawaiian variant called cone sushi wraps a triangular piece of fried tofu around rice. It can include green beans, carrots, gobo or poke, and it turns up in Japanese delis and bento boxes.

  Makizushi rolls rice and fillings inside a sheet of nori, using a bamboo mat. It then gets sliced into six or eight pieces per roll. Futomaki, the large version, typically runs 5 to 6 centimeters across and is often vegetarian. It is built from ingredients like cucumber, kampyō gourd, bamboo shoots or lotus root, chosen for contrasting color and taste. During Setsubun in the Kansai region, people eat an uncut futomaki called ehōmaki, made of seven ingredients considered lucky. Diners face whatever direction is deemed auspicious that year while eating it. That custom had spread across all of Japan by the year 2000. Hosomaki, the thin version, measures about 2.5 centimeters across and usually holds a single filling. Kappamaki, filled with cucumber, is named for the kappa, a legendary water imp said to love the vegetable. It is traditionally eaten between fish courses to reset the palate. Tekkamaki, filled with raw tuna, actually got its name and start as a snack in gambling dens, not from the color of the fish. Temaki, the hand rolled cone version, runs about 10 centimeters long. It must be eaten almost immediately, since the nori quickly turns soggy once filled.

  Nigirizushi tops a hand pressed oval of rice with a slice of fish. Some toppings, like octopus, eel or sweet egg, are secured with a thin strip of nori. Gunkan-maki is a nigiri variant with a nori collar wrapped around the rice. That collar holds loose ingredients, like roe or sea urchin, in place. It was invented at the Ginza Kyubey restaurant in 1941. That single change opened the door to far more soft, delicate toppings than nigiri had previously allowed. Temari-zushi presses rice and fish into a ball by hand, using plastic wrap rather than a mat.

  Oshizushi is pressed rather than rolled. A chef lines a wooden mold called an oshibako with toppings, then packs sushi rice on top. Pressing a lid down forms a compact rectangular block, which is then sliced. Osaka's battera is made only with cooked or cured fish, never raw. Its name comes from the Portuguese word for small boat, a nod to the shape of the mold. A version wrapped in persimmon leaves is a specialty of Nara. A seared version of oshizushi, invented in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2008, uses a butane torch over ingredients such as salmon, mackerel, mayonnaise and jalapeños. It later spread to cities like Toronto. None of these forms, though, explain how a roll built around avocado and cream cheese ever came to be called sushi at all.

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• 5. Sushi Reinvented Abroad

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  Three different chefs claim credit for inventing the California roll. It is the norimaki that swapped raw tuna for avocado and, eventually, imitation crab. The earliest print mention of a California roll appeared in the Los Angeles Times and an Ocala, Florida newspaper. That was on the 25th of November 1979. Weeks later, an Associated Press story credited Los Angeles chef Ken Seusa of the Kin Jo sushi restaurant. The claim came from an account by the restaurant's manager, Mrs. Fuji Wade. A separate account credits Ichiro Mashita of the Tokyo Kaikan restaurant in Little Tokyo. He reportedly began substituting avocado for fatty tuna during the off season, back in the 1960s. A third claimant, Hidekazu Tojo, is a Japanese born chef who has lived in Vancouver, British Columbia since 1971. He says he invented the roll at his own restaurant in the late 1970s. He claims the name comes from abbreviating crab and avocado to C.A. Tojo also claims credit for turning the roll inside out. In his version, the rice sits on the exterior. In 2016, Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries named Tojo a goodwill ambassador for Japanese cuisine.

  Uramaki is the inside out style the California roll popularized. It was designed to hide the nori that many Western diners found off putting. Rice sits on the outside, sometimes coated in roe or toasted sesame seeds. That rice wraps around a layer of nori and filling. Variations include the rainbow roll, topped with thin slices of maguro, hamachi, ebi, salmon and avocado, and the caterpillar roll, topped with sliced avocado. In Japan, uramaki remains uncommon. Sushi is traditionally eaten there by hand, and a rice covered roll is awkward to hold with fingers.

  Salmon sushi is one of the rare Western style creations that caught on in Japan itself. The reason traces back to Norwegian fish farms. In the 1960s and 1970s, Norwegian entrepreneurs worked out how to raise Atlantic salmon in net pens at sea. The result was fatty, parasite free fish that outperformed wild caught Pacific salmon. It soon created a surplus at home. Norway's first salmon shipment reached Japan in 1980, but it was sold for grilling, not sushi. Wild salmon in Japan had always carried a raw parasite risk. North American diners had already been eating salmon in sushi since the 1970s. Japan only followed suit in the late 1980s. That came after a marketing partnership between Norwegian businessman Bjørn E. Olsen and the Japanese food supplier Nichirei.

  In the United States, multi filling rolls inspired by futomaki now often take their names from the place they were invented. Southern sushi restaurants use crawfish. The tempura roll batters shrimp, or the whole roll, and deep fries it. Some kitchens swap in brown or black forbidden rice. The Philadelphia roll pairs salmon with cream cheese. The Dragon roll wraps shrimp tempura and eel under a shell of avocado. The Spider roll stuffs in fried soft shell crab. United States federal rules require any raw fish served this way to be frozen first, to kill parasites.

  Australian sushi favors a thick, uncut hand roll made from half a sheet of nori. That format only reached the country's takeaway shops in 1995. Toshihiro Shindo opened a stall called Sushi-Jin in a Melbourne food court that year. By 2024, sushi had become the third most popular food item in Australia, trailing only hot dogs and pizza. Canadian kitchens have invented their own hybrids, including doshi, a donut shaped sushi cake, and maki poutine, topped with cheese curds and gravy. Sinaloan sushi, a Mexican variant, has been sold in the western United States since 2013. South Korea's gimbap is similar in shape to makizushi. It swaps in sesame oil for vinegar and fillings like bulgogi beef and pickled danmuji radish. None of these regional inventions, though, change what happens underneath the toppings, in the grain of rice itself.

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• 6. What's Inside

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  Sushi rice, or sushi-meshi, starts as short grain Japanese rice. It is seasoned with a dressing of rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and sometimes kombu or sake. A chef mixes it by hand in a wooden tub called a hangiri, using a paddle called a shamoji. The rice has to cool to room temperature before use, or it turns too sticky once seasoned. Even within Japan the dressing varies by region. Kantō style leans saltier, while Kansai style adds more sugar. Some fusion kitchens now substitute short grain brown rice or wild rice. The classic version, though, depends on a stickiness particular to Japanese short grain rice. That is distinct from the long grain rice grown in places like India or Thailand.

  Nori, the dark green wrapper used in rolled sushi, is a red algae. It was historically scraped off dock pilings, pressed into thin sheets, and dried in the sun like rice paper. Today's version is instead farmed, processed and toasted commercially. The species Pyropia tenera is the most widely farmed for this purpose. It ranks among the top three cultivated seaweed species in China, Korea and Japan. A full sheet of nori makes futomaki, while half a sheet makes hosomaki or temaki.

  The fillings inside sushi, called gu, are chosen with even more scrutiny than the rice. Chefs are trained to judge smell, color and firmness closely. That training can catch problems a commercial food inspection might miss. Tuna, yellowtail, snapper, mackerel and salmon are the most common choices. The most prized cut, though, is toro, the fatty section of the fish. Toro is further divided into the fattiest ōtoro, usually from bluefin tuna, and the medium fatty chūtoro. In the aburi style, a chef partially grills the top of the fish while leaving it raw underneath. Most nigiri, by contrast, is served entirely raw.

  Genuine wasabi comes from grating the stem of the Wasabia japonica plant. The traditional tool is a sharkskin grater called a samegawa oroshi. Most wasabi served outside high end restaurants, and nearly all of it outside Japan, is an imitation. It is made from horseradish, mustard powder and green dye. Both the real and fake versions share the same spicy compound, allyl isothiocyanate, which also has antimicrobial properties. Pickled ginger is eaten between courses to cleanse the palate and aid digestion. It is served alongside green tea, a pairing so standard in Japan that better restaurants stock a premium variety called mecha. Pieces on a serving tray are traditionally separated by green leaf strips. These were once cut from real leaves whose antimicrobial compounds helped extend the sushi's shelf life. As convenience stores multiplied through the 1960s and refrigeration became standard, cheaper plastic strips replaced those actual leaves. None of that careful preparation, though, guarantees the fish on the plate is actually safe to eat raw.

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• 7. Risk And Regulation

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  Bluefin tuna and other large ocean predators accumulate methylmercury, one of the toxins found in marine pollution. They pick it up simply by sitting near the top of the food chain. A 2021 study conducted in Catalonia, Spain, looked at adolescents eating sushi. It found they were being exposed to more methylmercury than health authorities consider a safe daily intake. That risk matters most for pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children.

  A 2011 article estimated that roughly 18 million people worldwide were infected with fish borne flukes. Raw fish carries that parasite risk directly. Sushi and sashimi can transmit three specific parasites. They are the fluke Clonorchis sinensis, the roundworm Anisakis, and the tapeworm Diphyllobothrium, each capable of causing its own named illness. Infections during pregnancy carry extra risk for the developing fetus. To limit this, European Union rules require raw fish to be frozen first. It must sit below negative 20 degrees Celsius for at least 24 hours before it can legally be served raw. That same freezing process also stops tuna flesh from discoloring through oxidation.

  A 2021 DNA study in Italy found that 30 to 40 percent of fish species used in sushi were mislabeled. Labeling, it turns out, isn't always reliable. The most dangerous single ingredient is fugu, the pufferfish. Its internal organs carry a potentially lethal dose of the toxin tetrodotoxin. Because of that risk, many countries require fugu to be prepared only by a licensed chef. Licensing runs through a Japanese prefectural exam covering written knowledge, fish identification, and the hands on removal of the poisonous organs. Only about 35 percent of applicants pass that exam.

  Sustainable sushi refers narrowly to fish caught or farmed in ways that don't jeopardize the ecosystem supplying it. That standard has nothing to do with taste, freshness or price. Whether any of that governs what actually gets served depends on where the sushi ends up. It might be a private tatami room, a conveyor belt counter, or somewhere far stranger.

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• 8. Ritual At The Table

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  Many restaurants offer fixed price sets chosen by the chef from that day's catch. These sets are graded from most to least expensive, running from matsu at the top down to ume at the bottom. Traditional sushi presentation favors minimalist plates, often wood or lacquer. They are arranged with open space and clean lines meant to evoke a sense of calm. Some restaurants offer private booths where guests remove their shoes. A casual open dining room, though, is more common today. In kaiten-zushi, or sushi train restaurants, color coded plates ride a conveyor belt past diners. Diners tally their bill afterward by counting colors. Newer versions track each plate's freshness with barcodes or RFID tags.

  One practice, called nyotaimori, involves serving sushi arranged on the naked body of a woman. It is a presentation tied more to novelty and spectacle than to everyday dining.

  Nigirizushi is traditionally eaten with the fingers, even at formal meals, which differs from what many Western diners expect. Sashimi, by contrast, is almost always eaten with chopsticks. The proper way to use soy sauce is to turn the piece over and dip only the topping. The rice underneath has already been seasoned with vinegar, sugar, salt, mirin and kombu. It will fall apart if it absorbs too much extra sauce. Traditionally, a chef adds exactly the right amount of wasabi while preparing each piece, and a diner isn't meant to add more. Today, though, many restaurants serve extra wasabi on the side regardless.

  Green tea becomes agari at the sushi counter, a sign that sushi bars run on their own vocabulary. Soy sauce becomes murasaki, meaning violet, and a sweet cube shaped omelette is called gyoku, meaning jewel. Toppings are neta, a word formed by reversing the standard Japanese term for the same ingredient. The bill is oaiso, meaning something like compliment, and chopsticks are otemoto, literally the thing nearest to the customer. The word for vinegared rice itself is shari. It may trace all the way back to the Sanskrit word for rice, zaali, or to the word śarīra. That linguistic thread is still running under every sushi counter in Japan today.

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