Sushi Superstitions Shattered

Wise Bread blogs about Terry Corson's new book "The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket".

He claims that

The best sushi is not the most recently deceased.

Fish actually has to age slightly in order to achieve a full, rich flavor.Most of the sashimi that we eat in restaurants has been flash frozen using liquid nitrogen. This process kills many of the germs and worms that can develop in fish flesh, but doesn't cause any physical deterioration of the meat.

When you go into a fine sushi establishment and order the freshest daily fish, you aren't eating fish that was caught the same day, or even the day before. If you're eating good sushi, the fish is at least a few days old.

The wasabi you are eating... isn't wasabi

Turns out that real wasabi is difficult to grow and even more difficult to properly package. So what you eat is actually horseradish powder, mustard, and green food coloring.

Traditional sushi doesn't contain tuna or salmon

Tuna and salmon aren't traditional sushi choices because they spoil very fast. Fatty tuna is eschewed by the sushi snobs in Japan. Traditional sushi is technically whitefish, like halibut, snapper, or even clams and raw octopus (the Japanese sushi foodies, true to form, sometimes eat squirming live octopus).

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Check out Corson's book

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