Japanese Food - Sushi

In here i would like to talk about Japanese famous food - Sushi

This is another of the many foods Japan obtained from China, this one coming in about 2,500 years ago. It originally meant "sour-tasting food." This was probably because the sushi was prepared by pickling pieces of salted fish and shellfish in cooked rice.

In spite of common misperception, sushi is not raw fish. Sushi actually refers to the vinegar and rice used in making sushi. The "su" refers to vinegar, and the "shi" refers to the cooked rice. The vinegar/rice portion is often topped with raw fish which is why most people think sushi means raw fish.

During the Nara Era (710-794) sushi achieved gourmet status and was even given to dignitaries. That particular kind also used wild boar and deer meat in addition to fish.

Modern-day sushi did not come about until late in the Edo Era (1600-1868). This was started with the opening of a sushi shop in Edo (downtown old Tokyo). Period living in Edo liked sashimi, which are slices of raw fish. Hanaya Yohei, the shop's proprietor, invented a new dish by placing a piece of raw fish on top of a small amount of vinegared rice pressed together into a small mound. Customers then would dip the freshly made sushi into soy sauce. He had created Japan's best-known fast-food.

Some type of sushi include:
-Edomaezushi

-Hakozushi (pressed sushi)

-Maki Sushi (rolled sushi)

-Inari Sushi (Soybean pouch filled with sushi rice)

-Temaki sushi (hand-rolled sushi with vegetables or seafood wrapped in sushi rice then shaped into a cone)

-Chirashi sushi (bowl of sushi rife topped with seafood or vegetables)

-Nigiri sushi (hand formed sushi rice ball topped with sliced seafood)

Maki Sushi, or rolled sushi, refers to rice with various toppings rolled in a piece of nori (seaweed), and then but into pieces.

There are several varieties of rolled sushi. These include Tekka Maki (tuna roll); Kappa Maki (cucumber roll); Ikkura Maki (salmon roe roll); Tsuna Maki (cooked tuna roll); Kampyo Maki (dried gourd shavings roll); and Shiso Maki (sushi rice with shredded shiso).

There is also a form of Maki Sushi referred to as Futomaki Sushi. This is a larger variety of Maki Sushi that has a mix of ingredients in it. Standard ingredients include a mix of the following items: tamagoyaki (fried egg roll), kani (crab), kanpyo (rehydrated dried gourd shavings), shiitake (rehydrated dried Chinese mushrooms), maguro raw tuna, unagi (eel cooked in sweetened mirin and soy sauce), salad leaves and cucumber.

In the U.S. we have a variety of Maki Sushi which is called the California Roll. It contains tuna, avocado, lettuce and mayonnaise.