perhaps the best known internationally of all Japanese specialities, consists essentially of ‘fingers’ of vinegared rice with pieces of very fresh fish or other seafood laid along them, served with thin slices of vinegared ginger (gari) and hot green tea. However, in this, the best-known form and the one which belongs to Tokyo, sushi is really an abbreviation for nigiri-zushi, the full name. There are other sorts of sushi, with names indicating whether the product is, for example, pressed in a mould (oshizushi, from Osaka), wrapped in a piece of toasted nori seaweed (makizushi), or even just a formless bed of vinegared rice with pieces of seafood scattered on top (chirashizushi). This last item calls for no special skill, but the art of making nigiri-zushi is deceptively difficult and calls for a long apprenticeship.
Most of the popular seafoods may be used, provided that they are exquisitely fresh, but there are some, such as oysters, which do not ‘work’ in this combination.
The original of modern sushi is known as narezushi, a way of preserving fish by salting and fermenting between layers of rice (a method found elsewhere in SE Asia). First the fermentation, then the salting were done away with and the rice (which once was thrown away) was converted to the sublime vinegared rice of today. Something approaching nigiri-zushi was available in a multitude of Edo (Tokyo) restaurants by the middle of the 19th century. The modern forms were not fixed, however, until the advent of refrigeration. Both Hosking (1996) and Tsuji (1980) have details.
The spread of Japanese cuisine, largely through restaurants, has been a phenomenon of the last quarter of the 20th century. In part, these followed Japanese capital and personnel. In England, at least, there were few outside London unless catering for Japanese workers. But the popularity of Japanese food, like that of Thailand, was less bound up in diaspora and more in the globalization of taste—although the most important locale of Japanese restaurants was California, where there was a large ethnic-Japanese population.
As Americans became more accepting of raw fish, during the 1970s, so sushi restaurants increased in number. However, new forms were developed to encourage the squeamish. Hence the California roll, a large sushi roll with avocado, cucumber, and crabsticks.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Hosking, Richard (1996), A Dictionary of Japanese Food Ingredients and Culture, Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle.
Tsuji, Shizuo (1980), Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, Tokyo: Kodansha International.
