Yesterday I was happy to be able to partake of some sushi. Well, actually, salmon sashimi, which is my absolute favorite.
My question is (ignoring potential safety issues), if I went and caught a salmon, skinned it and bit in, would it taste pretty much like my piece of sashimi tasted? Is there any special treatment of the fish that would cause it to be a different sort of flavor?
Fish served raw are specially selected for mild taste. Catching one out of the river could be a hit-or-miss proposition. I have had some pretty gamey wild salmon that needed heavy seasoning and cooking. But with a bit of luck, if you caught a good-tasting wild salmon, and sliced it in the right way to get the proper texture, it shouldn’t be any different from what you get in a restaurant. As to what is the proper texture I can’t really explain it. Thinner is better and somehow cutting with the grain is better. When I do it myself it just tastes like a big hunk of raw fish, it’s always better when the sushi guy does it (that’s why they apprentice for years and years). So cutting it the correct way with the right knife is apparently important.
Some resturants marinate the fish, but not all of them. There’s also an art to the preparation-- they use certain cuts of the meat for different types of sushi. If you get a bad sushi chef, you can certainly tell a difference.
So far as I can tell, most of the fish you get raw at sushi bars are saltwater fish. I don’t think your trout, bass, or catfish are going to taste all that great raw.
As you probably know, sushi is made with flavored rice, so a piece of fish alone won’t taste like sushi.
Sashimi is just fish, but texture is an important component of taste. If you just bit into a big chunk of raw salmon, it would have a very different texture than a properly prepared sashimi. I don’t know if it qualifies as a different taste, but it’s certainly a very different experience.
But I’ve had sea urchin straight off a fishing boat. Just crack it and scoope out the roe with a spoon. Tastes the same as what you get in a sushi restaurant, only much better.
I think sashimi served in restaurants is also kept frozen for a certain amount of time as a preventative measure against parasites. Not sure it would affect the taste, but that is sort of preparation.
I know you said “leaving aside the safety issues”, but this needs to be said anyway…
the reason you never see freshwater fish served raw is because humans are essentially freshwater animals, there’s a fairly good chance that freshwater parasites/bacteria that live in a fish could live in a human, as we’re both freshwater based animals
any parasites that survive the freezing process in saltwater fish would likely not survive in a human, as saltwater parasites/bacteria cannot survive in freshwater
Hmm. I think you’re mixed up here.
First off, our ancestors crawled out of the ocean, not out of Lake Michigan. Even so, internally, there’s not a huge difference in blood salinity. Internally, we’re all saltwater creatures. (I’ll wait while you taste your blood.)
Most external parasites of freshwater fish can’t survive, externally, in saltwater. And vice versa. But the parasites that make sushi a potential health threat are internal parasites.
Ask me, the reason you don’t eat freshwater fish raw is the same reason, you go to any seafood restaurant, any fish market, and 99% of the fish are saltwater fish. There just aren’t that many freshwater fish species that are used in cooking–especially in Japanese cuisine–compared to saltwater fish. Plus, catfish are muddy tasting, and trout tend to be farmed and flavorless. Sashimi from a wildcaught trout might be an interesting taste treat, and freshwater parasites wouldn’t really be an issue. I’d still freeze it first for safety.
If you Google for “freshwater sashimi” you will find many web sites that claim that raw freshwater fish is unsafe to eat because of parasites. Now, this doesn’t prove it’s true, nor do the sites I looked at explain why these parasites would be found in freshwater fish but not in saltwater fish. Still, it seems that most authorities agree that raw freshwater fish is unsafe.
While it’s true that most fish eaten in Japan are saltwater fish, there are some freshwater fish that are eaten there. For example, unagi (freshwater eel) is always cooked.
You can get koi (carp) sashimi in Japan. Also ayu (sweetfish), though that’s not a true freshwater fish (goes out to sea and comes back to spawn in a river).
Aside - since everything that comes out of the sea tastes of fish (seaweed, shellfish, dolphins, driftwood etc.), would it be safer to say that sea fish taste of the sea? Just a freshwater fish taste of mud…
I’ve never had dolphin* or driftwood, but seaweed and shellfish don’t taste anything like fish. Nor do jellyfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, or whale. And none of them tastes like sea water.
*unless you mean dolphinfish, aka mahi-mahi.
I once caught a nice halibut, took it home, and had some as a sashimi meal that evening. It was wonderful! But, for any fish, you should let it go through rigor mortis and become pliable again before eating (whether cooked or raw) for the best flavor and textutre.
I knew what you meant, Fridgemagnet; there is such a thing as a generally marine flavour; it’s probably in fact a group of flavours, but things that live in the sea eat other things that live, or are found in the sea, so to a certain extent, they taste similar.
Oops, I may have come across literally in my previous post. For the record, I’m herbivorous, and don’t advocate eating cetaceans. I used to go sea fishing as an omnivorous child, and I can recall the particular taste of a lugworm-tainted sandwich to this day.
I can certainly attest that once, when a friend returned from Alaska with a salmon that he had caught and then had cleaned, boned, and iced, we spent an enjoyable evening cutting off small pieces of raw salmon and chasing them down with small shots of ice-cold vodka. It tasted about like sashimi.