JAPANESE CULTURE, EXPLAINED
寿司
Sushi includes vinegar-seasoned rice combined with fish, egg or vegetables, as well as older forms made by fermenting fish with rice. Hand-shaped portions, rolls, moulded blocks and rice-filled tofu pouches use the ingredients in different ways.
In long-matured honnare sushi, salted fish ferments with cooked rice. An Ishikawa fisheries research report describes the rice breaking down during lactic fermentation. After maturation, the fish is eaten and the rice discarded.
The report links Muromachi-period namanare with a shorter fermentation that left both fish and rice ready to eat. Here the rice serves as food as well as a fermentation medium; the name refers to the shorter maturation.
| Form | Souring | Rice |
|---|---|---|
| Honnare | Fermentation | Not eaten |
| Namanare | Fermentation | Eaten |
| Hayazushi | Vinegar | Eaten |
Hayazushi seasons rice with vinegar, reducing the wait for fermentation to produce sourness. MAFF places this change around the Genroku period, before the early-nineteenth-century development of Edo nigiri. Vinegar-seasoned rice provides a quicker route than long-matured narezushi.
Several accounts place the beginnings of nigiri in early-nineteenth-century Edo. Edo-Tokyo Museum’s reference answer brings together traditions associated with Matsunozushi and Hanaya Yohei, among others. Nigiri is a hand-shaped portion of rice topped with another ingredient.
Illustrated sequence for pressing egg-topped sushi in a mould.
Nigiri uses hand-shaped rice portions; rolls enclose rice and fillings; pressed sushi takes shape in a mould; chirashi spreads ingredients over rice. Inari encloses rice in fried tofu pouches. MAFF traces these forms through regional developments and links the greater use of raw fish to advances in ice-making in Meiji. Regional fermented traditions also continued.
Osaka’s hako-zushi is a pressed form: prepared toppings and sushi rice are layered in a wooden mould, pressed with a lid, then cut into bite-sized pieces.
MAFF’s Aichi recipe opens halved fried tofu into pockets, simmers them in seasoning and lets them cool. The cook packs sushi rice inside and shapes the filled pouches. Other modern sushi examples include Mizkan’s nigiri topped with boiled shrimp or thick omelette.
No. Cooked ingredients, egg and vegetables can also be used. Sashimi on its own is not sushi.
No. It describes a shorter-matured fermented form in which both fish and rice can be eaten.
No. Regional fermented forms continued alongside vinegar-seasoned and shaped forms.