RE: Is homemade sushi dangerous?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I just wanted to share a clarification on the article Is homemade sushi dangerous?, since I have just been clarified myself!

The word sashimi does not refer to sushi… exactly. When I lived in Hawaii, my mother used to eat sashimi, and I was told that it was simply raw ahi, which is tuna. Ironically, all the Hawai’ian words for “good” (ahi means, roughly, “fine”) are words for fish. Ono, which means “tasty”, is another prized food fish in the islands.

Anyway, I noticed this, so I went straight to Wiki and M-W. Apparently we were both half-right, I guess that adds up to one piece of Straight Dope. M-W defines sashimi as “a Japanese dish of thinly sliced raw fish”, and Wiki elaborates to say that the actual dish can be made from any kind of fish, or even vegetables.

Unfortunately, at least in Hawai’i, that definition is not in common use! There, sashimi is simply sliced raw tuna, and sushi made from it would simply be sashimi sushi.

As an interesting side note, there is another common (and popular) staple very similar to sushi. It is made of a rectangular pad of rice, about the size of half a can of Spam. Remember that, it’s important. The meat is placed on top, (I like mine cooked), and a roughly three inch strip of nori (seaweed) is wrapped around it, just to hold them together. This wonderful little fist sized snack is served warm in almost every convenience store or deli, and great whether made with chicken, ahi or other fish… if you’re lucky enough to find them, because those are not the most popular fillings. It is a one inch slab of greasy Spam. (TM?)

I love Wiki!

Bon apetit
angryredplanet

2

BRAH!!!

Get musubi??? I like!!!

Ho, cuz, no be all li’dat… Come on, brah, share!

{cough} Of all the things I miss from home, musubi and Diners’ chicken katsu are like at the top of the list.

So what, cuz, what hi skool you wen grad?

-PLD

3

You’re right. The article is incorrect. Sashimi is NOT “sushi made with uncooked fish”.

However, the definition you’re using for sashimi seems to be a local Hawai’ian one, and not how the term is used in most of the United States and Japan.

Sashimi is thinly sliced raw seafood served without rice.

Sushi is little pads of vinegared rice with meat or vegetables on top (often raw).

(Note that the term “sushi” also typically encompasses rolls, inari, and chirashi, but in it’s canonical form sushi is a topping on a pad of rice.)

4

The staff report might have added that it is uncommon and unadvisable to eat freshwater fish raw. The raw fish I’ve been served in sushi bars has always been from saltwater fish.

5

Does salmon count as freshwater or saltwater, here? The sushi place in town has some very nice salmon. And why would fresh vs. salt make any difference, anyway?

6

I am really impressed. Here we have a guest who:

  1. Started a thread in the right place
  2. With a clear title
  3. Linked to the Staff Report in question
  4. Fought some ignorance
  5. Backed it up with a cite (not linked to, but easily found)
  6. Shared an interesting anecdote

angryredplanet, here’s hoping you stay! Welcome to the boards!

7

As a guess, it might have to do with the fact that salt water is a pretty hostile environment for bacteria that otherwise cause nasty things to happen to humans. Which is why salt water soaks are a good way to kill them off.

Not saying it makes a real difference, mind. That’s for someone with real knowledge to deal with. :slight_smile:

8

Not to pile in, but …

Sashimi refers to the sliced fish…

Sushi refers to the cured, vinegared rice…

Nigiri is the finger-shaped sushi item with something on top (not always fish, see, for example, tomago nigiri) and a finger-segment-sized blob of vinegared rice on bottom, with a smidge of wasabi in between.

Maki are the rolls … for example, Gunkan Maki is the roll with the rice base, a cylindrical wrap of Nori, and the topping in the “cup” so defined. The idea for a roll is that the sushi rice and other ingredients are inside a skin of seaweed (nori).

Hako-zushi (Osaka-zushi) is not a roll, but a lasgna/layer-cake-like confection with rice as the bottom layer, with various items in the middle and upper layers, topped with some combination of clear seaweed and / or avocado.

Then there’s Chirashi, which is basically a tossed salad of sushi rice and assorted bits of fish and vegetables.

9
  1. Has a really cool username

Ditto on the “please consider sticking around.”

10

I might be, admittedly, wrong in saying this, but I would suspect that Chirashi is an American only thing. “Chirasu” is “to spread about, sprinkle, or toss about.” Living in Japan I mostly hear the word “chirashi” used to refer to junk mail that is deposited in everyone’s mailboxes by kids paid to run into apartment buildings and stick little flyers in. The little flyers are the “chirashi.”

It sounds like someone thought the whole mixing the sushi into the salad thing would be cool and came up with a “cool” name for it, which a “Sprinkler” sounds apt to be.

Though true I don’t eat salad nor sushi, so perhaps there is such a thing in Japan and it’s traditional called that. But as said, I would personally guess that it’s a Japanese-American invention.

11

No, it’s very common in Japan. You can order it at almost every sushi restaurant. It’s also a popular home-cooked meal because it’s easier to make than nigiri*. My aunt makes it almost every time she has guests for dinner.

*Nigiri is what most people think of as standard sushi - a piece of fish (or something else) on top of a lump of vinegared rice.

12

Right … chirashi is basically a quick and complete boxed meal in the Japanese market, whether it’s prepared commercially or domestically.

And to the US market, there are two kinds of sushi: the stuff on top of the rice (nigiri), and everything else gets called “roll”.

13

No real knowledge to add :slight_smile: , but I’m pretty sure that if there even is a reason for avoiding fresh freshwater fish, this can’t be it. The water is what they swim in, not an integral part of their bodies. They can just as easily maintain whole civilisations of bacteria within their guts as the best of us.

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Yes, but they can also maintain a colony of bacteria in parts that are in contact with the fresh water, which the salt water fish cannot.

If there is a reason to avoid eating raw freshwater fish, it would have to be related to the difference in salt v. fresh water and the relatively lower level of inimical bacteria and other bad things resulting from that difference. I do know that salt water is an environment that hinders growth of bacteria that bother humans; off hand I can’t think of any other aspect of salt v fresh that would matter. :slight_smile: