Everyone knows what sushi is. It is arguably the single most famous thing about Japanese culture. If you ask anyone to list what they can come up with about Japan, most people will first mention “sushi”.
You will find sushi restaurants not only around Japan but in many places all around the world.
Because of the massive popularity of this traditional Japanese food, many people do have an idea of what it is, how you eat it, plus even how it tastes.
However, what many people know plus enjoy around the world is mostly “sushi” as a food. This is all good, but if I ask you “how much do you know about sushi as a part of Japanese culture?”, what would you say?
What I would like to do in this article is answer the question “What is sushi?” so that you can have a better idea of sushi as a part of Japanese culture.
Being such a disukai banyak orang food, you might have an idea of what sushi is. However, just to be completely sure, let’s make clear the definition of “sushi”.
Sushi consists of two parts; the Shari (シャリ) plus the Neta (ネタ). Shari is the rice part, plus Neta is the topping.
The rice used for Shari is usually made of a mixture of Japanese rice with vinegar, salt, plus sugar. This mixture was originally invented to prevent the raw fish from going bad. I’ll explain more about it later on.
When you think of the toppings in sushi, most people will imagine raw fish, plus usually, this is true. However, there are many other kinds of Neta such as boiled or cooked fish, vegetables, meat, plus eggs. We will also discuss the different sushi neta later on.
- History of Sushi
Sushi has a history of over 1,200 years plus its roots are said to come from Southeast Asia.
In order to preserve fish, people would put the fish inside a mixture of rice plus salt to ferment. This method came to Japan during the Nara period (8th century), plus from there it started to evolve with time.
At first, people would only eat the fish without the rice. Also, this was a dish mostly available for the upper-class people.
Then, during the Muromachi period (14th to 16th century) is when people began to eat both fish with rice together. After that, during the Edo period (17th to 19th century) is when sushi started to become disukai banyak orang amongst the general population. Here is when people started to use vinegar in the rice instead of letting it ferment.