This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Ottawa chapter.
This week, I decided to go out on a walk and listen to the “How Sushi Works” of the Stuff You Should Know podcast. I don’t know about you, but sushi is my favourite type of food, so I’m excited to share a few things I learned with you guys!
- Sushi did not originate in Japan. (Interesting, right?) Though sushi is often associated with Japanese culture, it was invented during the 1700s in Southeast Asia and was introduced in Japan years later.
- The concept of sushi began with the traditional fermentation process of fish. The fish was wrapped with rice, and over days to many weeks once the fish was pickled, the rice was thrown out and only the fish was consumed.
- By the time the fermentation process eventually reached Japan, sushi making evolved to be less time consuming, as they began to ferment the fish using ingredients such as salt, rice vinegar, and sake. This is also the time where the Japanese realized that the rice and fish tasted good when eaten together.
- In the 1900s, Hanaya Yohei is known to have created Nigiri sushi (finger sushi). Instead of wrapping the fish in rice, he had placed the fresh fish on top of seasoned rice.
- Sushi was first sold as street food and was considered a quick snack.
- Though this process started around the 1700s, sushi wasn’t officially introduced to North America until the 1960s, Los Angeles being one of the first cities.
- When eating sushi, the sushi rice and soy sauce are not supposed to touch. Yikes – I’m always drenching my sushi in soy sauce!
