Facts about Sushi

Sushi is made with white, short-grained, Japanese rice mixed with a dressing made of rice vinegar, sugar, salt, kombu (kelp), and sake.

Apprentices may start at the age of fifteen or sixteen, and spend the first two or three years sweeping, washing dishes, doing chores, and learning to wash, boil, and prepare sushi rice.

By the ninth and tenth century C.E., "?" and "?" are read as "sushi" or "sashi."

At these restaurants, the sushi is served on color-coded plates, each color denoting the cost of that piece of sushi.

The process originated during the Tang Dynasty in China, though modern Japanese sushi evolved to have little resemblance to this original Chinese food.

The late twentieth century saw sushi gaining in popularity all over the world.

A good sushi chef is also a creative artist, with a repertoire of decorative sushi and sashimi for special occasions.

Finally, "ham and water product" refers to a cured hind leg of pork product that contains any amount of added water, although the label must indicate the percent added ingredients.

The advent of modern refrigeration allowed sushi made of raw fish to reach more consumers than ever before.

Sushi toppings may be raw, cooked, or marinated.

Some kaiten sushi restaurants in Japan operate on a fixed price system, with each plate, consisting usually of two pieces of sushi, generally costing Ґ100.

Sushi rice (sushi-meshi) is prepared with short-grain Japonica rice, which has a consistency that differs from long-grain strains such as Indica.

The Japanese name "sushi" is written with kanji (Chinese characters) for ancient Chinese dishes which bear little resemblance to today's sushi.

Sushi was also sold near a park during hanami (cherry blossom viewing) and a theater as a type of bento (lunch box).

The dish internationally known today as "sushi" (nigirizushi; Kanto variety) is a fast food invented by Hanaya Yohei (?????; (1799–1858) at the end of the Edo period in today's Tokyo (Edo).

All sushi has a base of a specially prepared rice, complemented with other ingredients.

Many small sushi restaurants actually use no plates—the sushi is eaten directly off of the wooden counter, usually with one's hands, despite the historical tradition of eating nigiri with chopsticks.

Today there is such a demand for sushi chefs, especially in the West, that many receive only six months of training before going to work as qualified sushi chefs.

The original term (??) sushi (-zushi in some compounds such as makizushi) in the Japanese language refers to the rice, not the fish or other toppings.

Prominent in Japanese cuisine, sushi is a food made of vinegared rice balls combined with various toppings or fillings, which are most commonly seafood but can also include meat, vegetables, mushrooms, or eggs.

Sushi rice generally must be used shortly after it is made.

Inarizushi (sushi made by filling fried tofu skins with rice) was sold along with oshizushi.

Some fish was cooked before it was put onto a sushi.

Sushi as an English word has come to refer to the complete dish (rice together with toppings); this is the sense used in this article.

Each piece was also larger, almost the size of two pieces of today's sushi.

The earliest reference to sushi in Japan appeared in 718 C.E.

The common ingredient in all the different kinds of sushi is sushi rice (simply sushi in Japanese).

Sushi has become increasingly popular in the Western world, and chefs have invented many variations incorporating Western ingredients and sauces together with traditional Japanese ingredients.

More traditionally, sushi is served on minimalist Japanese-style, geometric, wood or lacquer plates which are mono- or duo-tone in color, in keeping with the aesthetic qualities of this cuisine.

Sushi served rolled in nori (dried sheets of laver, a kind of seaweed) is called maki (rolls).