~ Sushi History ~

As we know so far, that Sushi is a special food from Japan, but do you know that Sushi can trace its routes back many centuries, probably to China where raw fish was salted and coated with a layer of cooked rice to help preserve it. The form of Sushi we eat today originated about 200 years ago in Japan. The availability of fresh fish was the reason why Sushi became so popular, with two specific styles emerging over time.

~ Kansai-style
In the Kansai region around Osaka, rice merchants serve decorative 'packages' of rice combined with other ingredients. The conveniently packaged Kansai-style Sushi is made predominantly with cooked ingredients and comes in various types and styles.

~ Kanto-style
Seafood and fresh fish were more readily available in the Edo region surrounding Tokyo. In this region, Sushi was served as a slice of raw fish over a small ball of vinegar rice. This Edomae-sushi or the popular Nigiri is the most familiar Kanto-style Sushi international Sushi Cuisine today.
Maki sushi (Rolled sushi) is the most popular and identifiable type of Sushi throughout Japan and the United State. A layer of seasoned rice and other ingredients are rolled into a seaweed-wrapped log, with the help of a bamboo mat, then sliced into rounds. Traditional maki sushi is rolled with the seaweed (Nori) on the exterior and the other ingredients in the interior of the roll.

~ New styles
The introduction of the Nigiri Sushi in the 1960's created a new wave of Sushi cuisine in the USA. The ' American-style' sushi maintains the traditional Nigiri, Maki and Temaki forms (meaning 'hand roll', Temaki calls for encasing the rice and other ingredients in seaweed cone), but incorporates new menu items and flavors. Today, it is common that American-sushi Chefs create their own 'signature-rolls' for their menus, to demonstrate their creativity.
As part of the new Sushi cuisine, Uramaki (inside-out roll) was created in America, this new variety of Sushi is rolled backward. Unlike traditional Maki rolls, nori and ingredients are placed in the interior of the roll and are surrounded by sushi rice. The best known example of Uramaki is the California roll.
Uramaki was created because Americans had trouble eating nori. While Americans dining in the early sushi bars enjoyed the food, they preferred not to see the seaweed. To remedy this, the pioneerng Chef Mashita at Tokyo Kaikan in little Tokyo, Los Angeles created the inside-out roll. This development is widely believed to have fuelled sushi's early success in the USA, and has led to hundreds of variations on the first uramaki. Interestingly, the American-style uramaki sushi is beginning to finds its way across the Pacifis to Japan. Bringing innovations in sushi-making back to the tradional styles in Japan is another step in the cuisine's evolution.

No matter what style you enjoy, sushi's main ingredients remain the same-Rice (authentic Japanese rice), Su (rice vinegar), Nori (seaweed) and an assortment of the freshest fish, mostly Sashimi, which is thinly sliced raw fish. An array of seasoning enhances the flavours created by chefs in sushi as Shoyu (soy sauce), Wasabi (hot green Japanese horse-radish) and Gari or Shoga (pickled ginger) as well as a range of sauces.

Sushi is absolutely right for today's lifestyle because it's low fat and calories, high in Omega-3 fatty acids when featuring fresh fish, and also easy to eat on the go.

~ Premium Sushi Rice
It should be noted that the term sushi actually means sourish and refers to the vinegared rice, not the raw fish, so great starts with making great rice. Sushi rice is the most important ingredient in your sushi, because without well-cooked rice, it can go very wrong to making the best sushi.
To sushi connoisseurs, the quality of the rice is as important as the freshness of the fish. The rice must be properly cooked and expertly seasooned with salt, sugar and rice vinegar in the right proportions. Cooling the cooked rice quickly helps give it a sought-after seen. In Japan, an assistant often fans the rice manually as the sushi chef dressed it.
It's essential that you use the correct variety of rice when making sushi to ensure that perfect consistency and the sticky quality so important to good sushi. When the rice is of high calibre, the sushi will be too, that's why it's important to use the right rice.


source :
Cooking with Inari the top quality Japanese Rice Book modified by dapur Deana