Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, I haven't eaten sushi in a long time. A while ago, I was just about to carefully taste the taste of salmon, but the epidemic in Beijing suddenly recurred, and experts also found the virus from the contaminated salmon board...
I......
Salmon and seafood are not hosts of the new crown virus, and the body will not be infected with the virus, so it is clear that this outbreak is not a pot for salmon. However, experts still recommend not eating raw salmon in the near future.
Forget it, I can't eat salmon sushi, so I'll talk to you carefully about sushi today - I can't be alone!
I have a stomach full of knowledge about sushi.
01 Sour rice hometown, in Southeast Asia
If you casually pull someone on the street and ask, "What does sushi look like?" The answer must be "a pimple of rice balls on the shelves of raw fish", "seaweed roll rice, there are fish and vegetables in it".
Nowadays, the shape of sushi is simple, which makes many people mistakenly think that sushi was born like this from the beginning. In fact, the early sushi not only has an unexpected appearance, but also a taste that is difficult to describe.
Hungry
Sushi, the foreign name sushi, originally meaning "sour rice", refers to a food that ferments salted meat and rice together. In Japan, sushi is often written as "鮨(yì)" or "鲊(zhà)".
Many sushi restaurants have the word "bass" in their names
Image from: The God of Sushi
In the Erya of B.C.C., it means minced fish. In the Chinese "Interpretation of the Name", "Fish" is a food marinated with salt, rice, and fish, but it is cooked and eaten.
"China on the tip of the tongue" "ancient dishes newly made" of the exquisite peony fish
It's actually fried marinated fish fillets
Could it be that sushi was invented Chinese?
In fact, back to the roots, it really isn't.
Originating in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia, the locals salt fish, shellfish and other meats and store them under heavy loads for ease of preservation. At first, rice was not added, but later it was found that adding rice to fermentation can produce a lot of lactic acid, which greatly prolongs the preservation time of meat.
Later, this method was introduced to China and from China to Japan.
Cooked sushi: The originator of sushi, eating fish and discarding rice
At the beginning of the 8th century AD, the earliest sushi appeared in Japan, "cooked sushi".
Here cooking is not cooked, but matured into the meaning of fermentation.
The maturation of the fish is fermented
Freshwater fish are used to make cooked sushi, and to this day, there are cooked sushi made with crucian carp in the Lake Biwa area of Shiga Prefecture. Salt the crucian carp for a month, rinse off the salt with water, lay a layer of fish in a wooden barrel, lay a layer of rice, lay another layer of fish...
After the bucket is fully covered, the lid is covered, compacted with a heavy object, and then the water is poured to isolate the air, and the short one is put for several months, and the long one is left for four or five years...
Crucian carp sushi in the process of being made
It's time, open the lid! It takes courage to take this step – the fermented rice becomes a paste, emitting a strong sour smell mixed with the smell of fish.
Fortunately, this rice does not have to be eaten, it will be thrown away, only the fish is dug out, cut into thin slices and served, and the eating method is similar to the salted fish that accompanies the meal in China. This sour and smelly dark dish, you can eat it, I respect you as a man.
Crucian carp sushi with crispy skin and rotten bones and golden croaker roe
Raw and cooked sushi, rice sushi: eat fish and rice together
The cycle of making cooked sushi is really too long, and it is a bit wasteful not to eat rice, so the Japanese people began to wonder, do they have to be pickled for so long?
Since the 12th century, some people have been "lazy" – the fish is only marinated for 4 to 15 days, and the rice is taken out as soon as it has a sour taste. It was found that such fish and rice could be eaten together. This kind of sushi, known as "raw and cooked sushi", that is, raw and cooked sushi, is not completely fermented.
To this day, there is also raw and cooked sushi made of saury in the middle of Honshu Island, the rice is sticky, the taste is like rice cakes, the sour taste is relatively light, and the fish meat has a heavy pickled taste.
Saury cooked sushi is being made
At about the same time as raw and cooked sushi, there is also a kind of rice sushi, which is made by adding rice koji to promote fermentation, and the rice becomes sweeter.
This kind of sushi is still preserved in the cold northern part of Japan, and the excellent representative is the salmon rice sushi of Hokkaido. It tastes sweet and hardly feels sour.
Box sushi: Vinegar in the rice, boxy
Gradually, the purpose of Japanese sushi is not to preserve the fish, but to enjoy the slightly sour and appetizing taste.
Since the food is sour, it does not have to rely on long-term fermentation, directly add vinegar! From the 13th to the 16th century onwards, the practice of adding vinegar to rice appeared.
The soul vinegar rice of sushi is usually mixed in wooden barrels
Vinegar rice is compacted in small wooden boxes, covered with cooked or marinated fish, covered with a lid, and pressed with a large stone (this retains the ancient meaning of cooked sushi). The sushi that is made is usually in the shape of a long strip, and then cut into pieces with a knife and eaten, which is the "box sushi" that appears in the Kansai region.
In the beginning, box sushi was also symbolically fermented for a period of time, but in modern times, this link is omitted.
Mackerel box sushi and snapper box sushi
Persimmon sushi in Nara and other places is wrapped in persimmon leaves and pressed, and it has a unique fragrance when eaten
Sushi: The fresher the better, eat as you like
During the Edo period, Kansai's box sushi spread to Edo Castle (now Tokyo). In Edo Castle at the beginning of the 19th century, the commodity economy developed, the pace of life was very fast, and sushi also began to embark on the road of ready-to-eat fast food.
Sushi stalls on the streets of Edo in the 19th century
Legend has it that around 1820, sushi master Kaaba and Hyobei (the name of a person, not Katoya and Hyobei) took the lead in abandoning the suppression link and instead clutched rice and fish together with their hands, becoming the later "holding sushi".
At this time, people no longer pursue the pickled fish, but began to pursue the tender and light taste of fresh raw fish, the fresher the better. Placing sashimi on vinegar-flavored rice and kneading it by hand into a long strip is very convenient and quickly became popular.
The method of making sushi seems simple, but it is actually very particular: it is necessary to keep the rice balls from loose, and not to stick them into a lump. An ideal sushi, from the side, the bottom of the rice should be flat bottom boat shape, and the top ingredients should be close to the rice, in the shape of an upward micro-arch.
At that time, holding sushi was a street fast food, usually used to pad the stomach before eating the main meal, and at most one or two were eaten.
People stand in front of the food stalls and eat sushi directly with their hands.
A grip sushi made from different fish
It wasn't until the Meiji period that sushi was upgraded to a full meal, and it was no longer appropriate to eat it standing up, so there were sushi restaurants that sat and ate where people could drink and chat.
Nowadays, many people use chopsticks to hold sushi to eat, thinking that it is more elegant. In fact, to this day, the most authentic way to eat sushi is to eat it with your hands:
Press your thumb on the sashimi, place your index finger on the side of the rice ball, and support the bottom of the rice ball with your middle finger. And note that when dipping in soy sauce, use sashimi to dip, not rice balls. Otherwise, the rice balls will absorb too much soy sauce, masking the flavor of the vinegar and easily falling apart in the sauce dish.
👇
Roll Sushi: Seaweed joins in, showing off its might
At about the same time as the holding of sushi, there is also a kind of roll sushi, which is now full of peach and plum.
Around 1750, flaky roasted seaweed was invented, followed by rolled sushi wrapped in seaweed with rice and various ingredients. Lay a rectangular piece of nori on top of a small bamboo curtain, then lay a layer of vinegar rice, put the ingredients in the middle, start from the short side of the seaweed, roll it into a cylindrical shape with the bamboo curtain, and cut it into small pieces to eat.
Small bamboo curtain roll sushi
Don't look at just taking seaweed to roll up vinegar rice, the Japanese also played with rolled sushi out of the trick -
The one with a relatively large diameter and more ingredients is called "Tai Roll", the one that is relatively small and has only one or two ingredients is called "Fine Roll", the one that rolls up horizontally from the long side of the seaweed is called "Middle Roll", and half a piece of seaweed is spread with vinegar rice and ingredients, and it is rolled into a cone shape and a cylinder of ice cream by hand called "hand roll" or "hand hand".
Hand rolls, fine rolls, too rolls
In addition to the various rolls in which the ingredients were wrapped inside, the "warship roll" with ingredients stacked on top of sushi before and after World War II was invented.
The warship roll wraps the rice in a circle of seaweed, and the upper edge is a little higher, so that loose and unsuitable ingredients such as sea urchins and roe can be stored on the "deck of the warship".
Warship rolls
In the 1970s, sushi began to enter North America. But Westerners don't like to eat raw fish, and they don't buy it at all.
So a Japanese chef in Canada began to think about improving sushi. He changed sashimi to cooked crab meat, plus cucumbers and avocados that Westerners love. Since many Westerners throw away the seaweed wrapped on the outside as wrapping paper, Hideki Tojo simply rolls the seaweed inside, which is the opposite of normal sushi. This sushi is called "reverse roll" or "inner roll". The surface of the rice is sprinkled with sesame seeds, fish roe, and then squeezed with mayonnaise to enrich the taste. Such a change is widely welcomed.
Later, this practice spread to the United States and flourished in California, so it was called the "California Roll", and everyone forgot that its birthplace was Vancouver.
California Volume
In addition to the ones mentioned above, there are also some non-mainstream sushi that are also very popular.
Why is it popular? Nothing special, because it is delicious:
Spling Sushi
Loose sushi began to appear in the 16th century, and some people say that it originated from loose box sushi. Loose sushi is made of fish and various ingredients directly on vinegar rice, in the form of the popular "seafood bowl", the key difference is that the rice of loose sushi is added with vinegar.
In the past, loose sushi was often made with boiled vegetables, seafood, tofu, etc., and fresh ingredients became popular later.
It's like a deluxe version of rice bowling loose sushi
Inari sushi
Deep-fried tofu is simmered in a salty and sweet sauce, then cut open like a purse and filled with vinegar rice toppings to make inari sushi.
This kind of sushi originated in Nagoya in the 1830s, and the ingredients are simple and simple, and it is very common sushi.
Tea towel sushi
Wrapped in a very thin tamago yaki (Japanese egg cake) with assorted sushi rice and tied with kelp or celery to make it a small package, this is the delicate tea towel sushi.
Whether it's making a thin tamago ware or folding a beautiful shape when wrapping it, it's quite a matter of craftsmanship — the eyes will be able to do it, and the hand: ?????
But think about it, the sushi god has practiced a lifetime of craftsmanship, how can we learn it after a few glances?
It seems that you still have to choose what you love to do, and then you can firmly and wholeheartedly devote yourself to it (drooling and suddenly inspirational).
Written by | Language Thai
Some of the images are from | 123rf.com.cn
WeChat Editor | glad