What is Sushi?

What is Sushi?

Mention the word sushi in America, and a million different images may flash in the mind: beautiful bite-sized rolls of rice and seaweed that enclose exotic ingredients or luscious jewel like cuts of fresh, raw fish that gently drape a tiny bed of rice. Some think of just raw fish while others haven’t a clue but picture in their minds a pleasant Japanese face presenting them with a plate of artfully arranged foreign pleasures. With all the modge podge of American ingenuity, it’s no wonder that sushi and its closely akin are so widely confused and misunderstood.

Unlike Japan, where time honored fare adheres to strict traditions, American sushi is completely freestyle. There is no wide tradition of training through long apprenticeships as in Japan where teenage boys work their way up from petty kitchen workers to sushi masters. Our land is that of innovation, instant gratification and trends; a place that is accepting of bending, breaking, mixing and reinventing age old traditions. And although America is full of ethnic cuisines that introduce our fickle palates to unfamiliar and exciting flavors, many have been given an American facelift and are presented more appropriately as ethnic style or fusion. And now, with more and more palates opening to exciting world of sushi, American chefs are quickly grasping the cuisine and shaping it skillfully into something that represents the various regions of the country, including the South.

DEFINITION OF SUSHI
So what exactly is sushi? Sushi is the name reserved for vinegared rice. It generically includes all forms of a highly specialized cuisine that has vinegared rice as its base component. Sometimes it involves raw fish. Sometimes there is cooked seafood. And sometimes there is no seafood at all. In America, sushi can contain almost anything.