Thanks for all your great work fighting ignorance. Every little bit of truth helps!
I have been told than when eating sushi – or any form of raw fish – to make liberal use of the ginger and wasabi (green stuff) provided. The ginger, wasabi, and even green tea and miso soup all have something that helps kill germs (and perhaps, worms).
At the very least, I would suggest enjoy your raw fish in the most traditional way possible – stick to green tea and avoid drinking soda or diet soda with your meal. Who knows exactly sort of havoc caffeine, sugar, saccharine, splenda, and Nutrasweet can have on the human body? I wouldn’t want to mix raw fish in there.
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Concerning the use of wasabi:
The Los Angeles Times recently had an article on the etiquette of eating sushi. I had been given the tip to mix wasabi and soy sauce together in the bowl, and dip the sushi in that. The L.A. Times said that this was incorrect. Do not mix the wasabi and soy sauce! And most chefs add the necessary amount of wasabi (in their opinion) for the serving, and it should be unnecessary, for a diner with a refined palate, to slap on more.
Unfortunately, “one size fits all” doesn’t work especially well in matters of taste. Most sushi restaurants appear to understand this, and so provide an auxiliary supply of wasabi, obviously intended to be more than decoration.
I can’t claim to have a refined palate, but IMHO there is never enough wasabi. From time to time, however, I get a piece that has more than the usual amount of wasabi concealed inside, dip in my fairly strong mix and achieve a new state of conciousness. Not a good plan for every piece, but once in a while it’s good.
I’ve never been accused of having a refined palate either. I’m more the human garbage disposal type. I’ll eat anything.
I know that wasabe is provided along with the sushi in the restaurant, but then again in a fine steakhouse they will give you steak sauce along with your steak. I’ve heard many purists say that a fine steak should not have steak sauce poured on it - and the LA Times writer heard from a sushi chef that the diner should not add wasabe after he (the chef) took great care in preparing the perfect piece of sushi. Don’t blame me when the chef waltzes over the counter and boots you from his restaurant for insulting his masterly cook-fu.
Mmm. Forty years ago in Tokyo I did most of my eating in sushi bars - where it’s not nice to mention money. You just point to the roll you want and the chef puts it on your plate and drops a colored plastic token in your dish. At the end you take the dish of tokens outside the shop where the bill is tallied according to the colours of the tokens, the colours corresponding to denominations of money.
Anyway. Wasabi in the soy. Every diner I saw began by absent mindedly mixing a bit of wasabi into the soy sauce. Into this one dipped the sushi and side dishes such as leaves of dried seaweed. So it may be a fad thing, a class thing, a thing invented to divide us into the “in” folk and the “out” folk. Maybe something to disguise the taste of not-quite-fresh fish or the fact that the wasabi isn’t wasabi but the horseradish fake stuff the sell here. Fresh fish, btw, doesn’t smell like fish at all. I’m talking halibut, 15 minutes from the water to the plate… Oh my!
Sushi or any other type of raw fish is eaten at the risk of being infected with worms. The infection you get from eating infected fish is anisakiasis. The worm is a worm usually about an inch long that bites on to the inner wall of your stomach. This creates a two inch lesion that will require medical attention. You can usually know if you have anisakiasis because anywhere from a few hours to a few days, you will feel excrutiating pain in your stomach which many describe as feeling like your stomach is being pierced by swords. Than you probably vomit blood and pass out. Yup. True story.
I lived in Japan for 7 years - in the far North. Sushi is generally a special meal for special occassions - you make a thing of it, like when going out to a nice restaurant here, or order it in if you have important guests. You most certainly do not mix wasabi in the soy on these occasions.
Sashimi is raw fish you eat more regularly.
I think the rotary sushi bars are more your fast food version, ie not classy and as such maybe people think it is okay to put the wasabi in the soy. We didn’t have any where I lived. In all the time I lived there I never once saw a Japanese person do this and I lived in a fishing village where sushi and sashimi were very popular and generally cheaper than elsewhere.
My friends offered to take me to a restaurant in Tokyo that was even fresher. The live fish was clamped down on the table, and slices cut off it while it was still squirming, so you know it was fresh. I declined politely.
While we’re on the subject of sushi etiquette, from what I know, you’re supposed to dip the fish side into the soy sauce, not the rice side, which absorbs too much soy and tends to overpower the taste of fish. Having experimented myself with the fish-side v. rice-side dipping, I must admit I do prefer dipping the fish-side into the soy.
Also, it is perfectly okay to use your fingers instead of chopsticks when eating sushi.
And, quark, sushi is not necessarily raw fish. It can be, or it can be something like tamago–topped with a slightly sweet, egg omelet-type thing–or unagi–cooked eel, or any of a number of things which are not raw fish. Sushi itself refers to a dish made with rice that has been dressed with vinegar and some salt & sugar, and shaped into bite-sized pieces, then topped with all sorts of ingredients. They can also be rolled in seaweed (e.g. California rolls), although I am unsure whether purists call rolls “sushi” or not.
Sashimi is raw fish (served thinly sliced, sans rice.)
So the entire population of Japan must suffer from this disease! Amazing how they’re the longest lived nation on earth despite that. Thanks for the warning!