And why not chew it off? Is it like in church where you’re not supposed to nibble your consecrated wafer?
I agree with the other things, though. And I feel like I’m supposed to repost the old “The Japanese Tradition” video on sushi: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bDL8yu34fz0 It’s awesome. (And since satire doesn’t always translate on the internet: It’s a spoof.)
I want to say it’s some reason a long the lines of “it was masterfully creafted in such a way that the only best experience is to eat the whole thing at once, and to do otherwise is to insinuate a lack of respect”, with the disclaimer that I don’t actually know if that’s what it is.
I think a good display of respect and that you enjoyed something, is to finish your plate. But that doesn’t mean you got to swallow everything at once?!
As I understand it, sushi in this context is specifically made to be a single bite.
And why not chew it off?
Last time I had sushi (about a week ago), I tried a place I’d never tried before. I ordered some sashimi and they were huge. If I’d eaten those in one bite each, it would have been like that game “chubby bunny”. But then again I don’t really know how authentic this particular sushi place was. Tasted great, though.
Don’t chew it off because the rice will go everywhere. But if you’ve got a plate then your fine.
How the hell do i eat it in 30 seconds when it all arives at once?
I too am looking for the answer to this. Like are you supposed to eat the entire roll in 30 seconds? You’re not even tasting it at that point. I’m hoping 30 seconds per piece.
The guide is probably specific to nigiri sushi, that’s what is depicted at least. As the other commenter mentioned: in high end sushi restaurants, the chef will serve you individual pieces of nigiri sushi as you order them, so 30 seconds seems like a reasonable time limit in that context.
What’s with the wasabi and soy mixing? I saw someone do that recently for the first time. He looked very confident at it and I assumed i had been doing it wrong all this time. Why is mixing a thing suddenly?
Why is mixing a thing suddenly?
Definitely not new, people have been doing this since at least the 90s, when I was a kid.
I also know plenty of Japanese people who say dipping the rice lightly into soy sauce is the correct method, so take literally any “sushi etiquette” guide with a grain of salt.
Eat your food in whatever way brings you joy. Anyone that says otherwise is a pointlessly-gatekeeping idiot.
That’s true. On the other hand, frying a good piece of beef beyond well-done also isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It’ll just get dry and destroy the thing. And similarly, if you put a high quality piece of raw salmon on rice and then proceed to make it just taste of too much wasabi and salty soy sauce, makes the salmon kinda pointless. I’m not sure. People do all kinds of silly stuff with foreign food. Including mixing all the sauce, wasabi and ginger and stuffing it in their mouths… There are worse sins available to do, but I always wonder what kind of taste buds these people have.
I mean I don’t care about that stuff too much. I just put whatever I like on sushi. I think that happens to align with what is deemed appropriate. It’s a bit boring without salt, but I want to taste the fish and rice so I use the sauce sparingly. In the end the important thing with food is that it ends up in my stomach and feeds me.
I can taste the fish quite well with soy sauce and wasabi. The saltiness raises specific flavor profiles and the wasabi kicks as those profiles are coming down. Don’t put your mouth feel on someone else unless it’s identical (it’s probably not).
The more important difference is the quality of the meal. I’ll do whatever I want with low- and mid-tier meals. I don’t know about you; my dining out budget isn’t regularly hundreds of dollars a plate so it doesn’t really matter what the chef intended they can’t express it that well at that price point.
I found that I liked bibimbap in the stone pot, and ate it a few times enjoying it, before one time one of the Korean waitresses saw me eating it unmixed as it had come out, grabbed my bowl away from me, squirted a bunch of the hot sauce into it, mixed it aggressively for me with my spoon, and then handed it back to me explaining that that’s the way to do it and I should do it that way from now on. And, some of my friends were in Thailand and had some kind of dessert come out for them that was in the shape of a snowman, and they had a member of their party who was a big fat guy, and when the food came out all the wait staff started messing with him that he and the snowman were the same shape.
I feel like Japan got all the politeness for the whole region rerouted to them and everyone else just kind does whatever kind of elbow-jabbing food-correcting baldness-making-fun-of thing that comes into their head to feel like doing at whatever time and if you don’t like it you can deal with that on your own.
Hehe. Yeah, Bibimbap is Korean. So not exactly the same thing. And as far as I know the word literally means “mixing” and “rice”. I think it’s really tasty. And it comes pretty spicy in the restaurants I’ve had it (Which is far away from Korea.)
Asia in general is just much more “honest” than the West. If you’re fat, they won’t beat around the bush and say “you’re beautiful the way you are.” If you’re ugly, they won’t hide in platitudes, they’ll say “damn, it must suck that you’re so ugly.”
It’s not malicious, these are simply facts that they don’t ignore. And, to be honest, I think it’s healthier in a lot of ways. The west has a ridiculously massive weight problem that we just completely ignore - or even actively support - because people are afraid to make anyone feel bad.
My Japanese friend did this. I always wondered if you was meant to (I seen them do it on Jackass).
Since then I just assumed it was the right thing to do.
It’s just personal preference.
I learnt it from a chef in Japan in 2009, and I assume he had been doing it for many years at that time.
Generally, that’s something done at a sushi train restaurant where the dishes won’t have wasabi in them already. I’m guessing these notes are for a sushi restaurant where the chef prepares the sushi specifically for each customer, so if you wanted wasabi they’d put it in the sushi itself.
It depends. In really high-end and authentic sushi restaurant, there is already wasabi between the fish and the rice. You are supposed to dip the fish side in the soy sauce only.
On the other hand, it’s okay to mix the wasabi if the sushi is not prepared that way. People do this even in Japan.
People in Japan do it all the time. Ideally, the chef would get the proper amount of wasabi on everything and you wouldn’t need/want to do it, but that is not always the case. It is generally looked on more favorably to dab some wasabi on each piece rather than mixing, though.
I mix my wasabi and soy sauce every time. I also dip my sushi in this mixture rice-side down. I’ve never had anyone complain about this. If any sushi chef ever does complain I will just leave and never give business to that gas station again.
Don’t mix wasabi with soy sauce? So… chuck it into your mouth like a gumball?
No, you broken chopstick, you dab a little on your sushi if you want extra. Moreover, most of the wasabi in the West is just green horseradish. Real wasabi is a root that comes from a river and tastes nothing like what we commonly find outside of Japan.
The tradition of adding it to sushi remains even if the wasabi we’re given isn’t wasabi.
How bad is it if I enjoy mixing soy sauce and fake wasabi and shower it over my pieces?
When I was in Japan, you could indicate when ordering whether you wanted wasabi and the chef would place a dab between the rice and the fish. My understanding is that real wasabi loses flavour very fast after being grated. Placing it so it doesn’t contact air helps to preserve flavour.
I would not say real wasabi tastes nothing like the horseradish fake. You can tell the plant is still part of the horseradish/mustard family. It’s definitely a more “clean” flavour though. It’s pretty easy to tell when you get the real thing. The fake stuff looks like a quite intensely green uniform mushy paste. The real stuff looks a bit like grated ginger, but with a pale green colour, often with some variation in colouration.
Thanks for the explanation, now that makes sense. I feel like dabbing a small piece of wasabi on the sushi makes an uneven taste when you first chuck it in your mouth, that’s why I’ve always mixed it with the soy sauce so it’s spread evenly. Having it integrated into the sushi when it’s made makes sense.
Er, what if it’s not actually soy sauce? Like, imitation or reduced sodium soy sauce? I can’t handle this.
I love seeing everyone try to reason their way out of accepting a polite request that literally says that it’s not mandatory.
The only one I really would avoid is passing things between or touching chopsticks together. This is reminiscent of Japanese funeral rituals and thus considered rude to do at the table.
The others are more about common sense and trying to help you enjoy the sushi as the chef intended:
- They are bite-sized pieces, designed as a flavour combination, so don’t break them up in any way
- If you don’t want rice, sashimi is a good way to get that
- Putting too much soy sauce on the rice can make it fall apart
- (real) Wasabi is delicate and mixing it with soy sauce will certainly destroy its subtle flavour. In any case in a high-end place the sushi chef will have added everything that’s intended as part of the flavour combination before serving the sushi, so adding stuff is not necessary
But again, these are suggestions. Enjoy the sushi how you like, you’re not hurting anyone.
I was taught to pass food with the back end of the chopsticks, not the part that goes in your mouth. Is that your understanding as well?
Generally, if you want to pass food to someone, put it on a plate so they can pick it up themselves.
The only reason to use the back of the chopsticks, is if there is a shared plate of food in the center without a separate set of serving chopsticks. Taking from the shared plate with chopsticks that have been in your mouth could be considered unhygienic. You can use the back of the chopsticks to move the food to your own plate, then eat it.
However this is more like advanced etiquette and not a crucial rule, in my opinion. The only really bad things to avoid are sticking your chopsticks upright into rice and passing food between chopsticks.
Yep. To turn the tables, is anyone going to stop you if you order a well-done steak and douse it in ketchup? Probably not unless you’re at a very high end establishment, but will it come off as uncultured, rude to the chef and raise a few eyebrows? You bet.
Likewise, there are Italian places where they will outright refuse to cut your pizza for you or to put parmesan on seafood pasta. British high tea is loaded with rules for serving and consumption order. Lots of cultures have these rules and expectations.
This is a helpful guide to general politeness and etiquette in a culture that highly prizes those things. It’s meant to be helpful to those who care. Why people are shitting on it as some show of defiance is beyond me and comes off childish as all hell.
