11 things about sushi you never saw coming

I love sushi, but apparently I’m doing pretty much everything wrong – and ha, the irony: my (according to some, very extreme) sushi quirk suddenly turns out to be incredibly polite. How do you score on the sushi scale? 

11 things about sushi you never saw coming

Sushi didn’t actually come from Japan

Small shock: it comes from Southeast Asia, near the Mekong River, and slowly meandered towards Japan, where it took on its current form around 1850.

Sushi rice wasn’t meant to be eaten

But to press the filling firmly together and protect the dish itself from flies. Want to get started at home? Then read how to make the perfect sushi rice.

It takes five years to become a sushi chef

In Japan, a real sushi chef is called an Itamea-San. Such a chef is familiar with every aspect and development in the profession. To become an Itamea-San master, you have to travel a long road, as you need to complete special training. This training takes at least five years, and completing it is far from easy. You can only succeed if you have an enormous passion for Japanese cuisine and a generous helping of perseverance.

You eat sushi with your hands

How convenient is that? I’m always fumbling with those chopsticks because the sushi is simply too big to get into your mouth in one go with chopsticks and all. But YOU DON’T HAVE TO. Wonderful: I now have the very best excuse to eat with my hands.

Sushi or shoeshi

Sushi chef and sushi artist Yujia Hu, also known as theonigiriart on Instagram, made his shoeshi (with angelic patience!) at the Japanese restaurant sakana in Milan. He works the same way he makes any other sushi (sushi rice, nori sheets, the works). For the tiny details, such as thin Adidas stripes on the Adidas shoeshi or the famous Nike swoosh on the Nike shoeshi, he uses a toothpick.

Sushi tastes better in Japan

Because everywhere in the Western world, the fish – even if they say it’s fresh – is frozen for at least 24 hours. They do this to kill parasites. Japanese sushi chefs are trained so well that they can tell by looking at the fish whether it contains parasites. So there, the fish really is fresher than fresh.

You eat nigiri the other way around

So first the fish or egg part goes on your tongue, with the rice on top.

Sushi helps with dry eyes

If you spend all day behind a computer, you certainly won’t be the only one suffering from dry eyes. And it turns out that research points to a very tasty solution: sushi. Well, not actually sushi – we’re making that connection ourselves. According to researchers at Hokkaido University in Japan, eating oily fish such as tuna, salmon, sardines and mackerel can help. In other words: the main ingredients in sushi.

Never tip the sushi chef

It’s considered extremely rude. You can offer them some sake, or give them a respectful bow.

Leaving soy sauce behind is very rude

I’m always looked at with horror when I drink my little soy sauce dish empty at the end of the meal. But it turns out this is always better than wasting soy sauce. Even better: make sure you don’t have any left over. You do this by following good Japanese practice: pour tiny amounts of soy sauce into your dish, topping it up a little at a time. There are also chefs who recoil at the urge to dunk your sushi in soy sauce because, hey, they have brought the sushi to the perfect flavor, and you shouldn’t ruin it with an excess of soy sauce. The most important lesson here: you eat the sushi the way the chef prepares it. So with soy sauce or without, with wasabi or without, you don’t start doing your own thing – and apparently I’m still getting it wrong after all…

Amateur hour at its finest

Dipping your sushi rice-side-first into the soy sauce so that the rice crumbles and falls into your sauce. A lot of love went into that rice, and you shouldn’t ruin it with an overdose of sauce. Always dip only the fish into the sauce, not the rice. The rice absorbs it quickly, causing it to fall apart. Besides, the flavor soon becomes overpowering. Such a waste.

Also read: 

• Other things you can do with nori besides making sushi rolls 
• Salmon, avocado and toasted nori 
• Dining etiquette for your (first) date