11 ms·
How Norway Created Salmon Sushi
- kevindeasis 11y agospeaking of sushi, here's a video about the extinction of blue fin tuna (includes economics, history, culture): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hivvTo6VSS8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hivvTo6VSS8
- sovande 11y agoOne more reason to eat salmon sushi, salmon is farmed and will not go extinct.
- 4ad 11y agoFarmed salmon is much inferior to wild salmon though.
- anonymousDan 11y agoAmen. I'm originally from the west of Ireland and we used to sometimes get fresh wild salmon from a local river off a fisherman friend of the family. The taste difference was just amazing. The farmed stuff is liking eating plastic in comparison. The other thing that makes a huge difference in my experience is to have fish that's never been frozen (someone once told me the reason has to do with the crystallization process killing the taste, although I've no idea how that works).
- maaku 11y agoCrystallization bursts cell membranes, causing more rapid decay from the moment it is thawed. It is that (micro-)decay that causes the change in flavor.
- akiselev 11y ago> (someone once told me the reason has to do with the crystallization process killing the taste, although I've no idea how that works) The crystallization process in this case means that the solid crystal formed by water freezing into ice ruptures all of the cell walls, releasing their contents. Once that happens the chemistry of the food can change drastically as enzymes and proteins that were once only active inside cells are now floating everywhere. In the case of frozen salmon, the taste appears to come from some sort of enzymatic process involving fatty acids [1]. [1] http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf000021c http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf000021c
- ceejayoz 11y agoDepends on your tastes. The farmed stuff has a higher fat content, which tends to be more palatable in sushi.
- morganm 11y agoOpen-net pen farmed salmon is done in the same water sources that wild salmon swim through. Farmed salmon have no natural predators so viruses are more readily transmitted to their wild counterparts. For more information: http://www.salmonconfidential.ca/ http://www.salmonconfidential.ca/ See Oceanwise's salmon recommendations: http://www.oceanwise.ca/seafood/salmon http://www.oceanwise.ca/seafood/salmon
- ceejayoz 11y agoTuna's much harder to farm (the fry have a tendency to kill themselves in inventive ways), but they've figured it out in recent years.
- pvaldes 11y agoyes, and they are canibals, a tuna larvae is all mouth. But either will be domesticated or extinct. I prefer the first.
- hellofunk 11y agoFascinating. I love sushi but never knew that so much of it was actually of Norway's influence. Unlike the famed influence of sushi chefs in west Canada and California in the mid-20th century, which carried over into the names of popular sushi rolls (the "California" roll), it would seem this Norway invention was even more important, but where are my Norway rolls?
- tormeh 11y agoKeep in mind that California is very good at PR. Or bragging. Depends on how you look at it. Other places are similar, of course. Paris, and France in general, comes to mind, but so does Berlin. London can't decide if it's awesome or rubbish, but it knows it's important. California is convinced it's the center of the universe.
- hellofunk 11y agoThe the logic I can draw from your statement is that Norway is a very humble place :)
- tormeh 11y agoWell, yes, that's half of it. The other half is that social status is more implicit here.
- hellofunk 11y agoI'm down in Holland, thinking about visiting Norway soon, it's just across the little pond, after all. Maybe some of that implicit status will rub off on my during my visit. You have a recommendation for a good place for a Norway-newbie to visit?
- csl 11y agoAs a tourist? Go to the north west: Møre og Romsdal and further up north, Lofoten. If you want to visit the national parks, go east from Møre (the mid parts of Norway). I'm Norwegian, and if you want to see postcard nature, you have to go to the norhern coastal parts. Don't go just to Oslo or Stavanger and think that's all there is (although both are beautiful in their own ways). Go in late July or August. Best wishes!
- MrJagil 11y agoAs always when sushi is mentioned on HN, here is a link to the fine documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772925/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772925/ And Tampopo should be in the same vain, supposedly very good, fiction though: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048
- lamby 11y ago> As always when sushi is mentioned on HN, here is a link to the fine documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi Which always amuses me because, at least to me, «Jiro Dreams of Sushi» is not remotely about sushi at all.
- sho 11y agoTo be fair, it actually is remotely about sushi.
- malnourish 11y agoTampopo and The Funeral are both incredible films by Itami, who was a master. Excellent satirist. The Funeral is also one of the "comfiest" movies I have ever seen.
- pi-rat 11y agoVisiting sushi places in Japan, they often have pictures of northern lights and Norwegian mountains telling customers they have fresh salmon shipped from Norway by air: http://www.eikeland.se/snap/salmon.jpg http://www.eikeland.se/snap/salmon.jpg
- ramgorur 11y agothe name of the brand is 'aurora salmon'
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoI'm told that they fly cargo planes with salmon from Norway to Japan, unload salmon then fill the planes with electronics, fly to eastern Europe where the various brands have their continent-wide warehouses, unload electronics and then fly to Norway to load up with salmon again.
- pvaldes 11y agoA very interesting connection with our laptops. And very logical also; a common trick when you export something is to assure to fill the wide containers with anything that you can buy cheap in the destiny country before to return home. Thus you optimize your transport costs or, like in this case, share it with other companies.
- sumitwgi 11y agoweb designing company in Norway visit at Web Gateway India visit at http://www.webgatewayindia.com/ http://www.webgatewayindia.com/
- pvaldes 11y agoAnother way of see this is that both, Japan and Norway have a big aquaculture industry and they compete. To assure the control of the salmon's market is an essential goal for Norway as nation; they produce 1 million of tons each year for the european market. When somebody tries to farm new salmon (in France or Spain or whatever) they typically flood the market with below cost salmon or trouts until the competence is distroyed by lack of rentability. This is probably the reason for not having salmon farms in the NW pacific that could be much more convenient for the Japanese market in the 80's. Only very big companies with lots of resources and money can dare to enter here.
- twic 11y agoInteresting. Quite a lot of salmon and trout in the UK is Scottish. It never occurred to me that we might only be eating it locally, and not exporting it.
- 4ad 11y agoIt is exported, I can find it in Austria, however, it's no near as prevalent as Norwegian or Austrian (yes!) salmon. Than being said, prices are now crazy low in Austria compared to what they were a few years ago.
- roel_v 11y agoIn the Netherlands Scottish salmon is sold as 'premium'. Funny how these things go sometimes.
- kijin 11y agoThe fact that the Norwegians had to freeze all of their surplus salmon probably helped, too. Freezing kills parasites, eliminating the #1 reason the Japanese didn't want to eat raw salmon. Nowadays, most salmon stays frozen until a few hours before it goes on your sushi. Salmon is uniquely suited for freezing/thawing because its high fat content helps it retain texture. Freezing also has the side effect of giving salmon a relatively long shelf life, making it readily available in parts of the world that are thousands of miles away from actual salmon sources.
- varjag 11y agoThe only reason Norwegian salmon getting frozen is transportation. Domestically, it is sold chilled near exclusively. Well and in a few smoked/fermented variants certainly.
- jpatokal 11y agoTo this day, the salmon in Japanese sushi restaurants is always labeled サーモン "saamon", which is known to be imported and is OK to eat raw; and never 鮭 "s(h)ake", which is (usually) local and always salted and cooked first -- even though ''shake'' as a term covers all types of salmons.
- greggman 11y agoI've been to plenty of sushi restaurants in Japan where it's labelled 鮭 and pronounced "shake". No idea if that means it was local salmon
- klunger 11y agoI lived there for two years and clearly remember it being labelled as 鮭 (while painstakingly learning the words and characters too for different common foods as well). Granted, this was about 10 years ago, so maybe it has changed?
- jpatokal 11y agoIn a sushi restaurant? Of course there are lots of 鮭 dishes in izakayas and such, but I've never seen any in a sushi restaurant. See also: http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1149858456 http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q114...
- jmadsen 11y agoInteresting! Lived in Japan a long time, and always half-wondered why it was "salmon" for sushi & "sake" for everything else but never asked.
- filvdg 11y agoWhen I lived in Argentina we would call Sushi restaurants "Salmon shops" as they would never serve Tuna, it would be 95% salmon and some minute pieces of white fish.
- pvaldes 11y agoThose are raised in Chile probably, the american productor of Salmon. Is the same as Norway for European market (and often farms belong to Norwegian or Norway/Chile mixed companies).
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago> productor You're probably looking for the English work 'producer'.
- pvaldes 11y agoYes, thank you for the correction
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago*word Muphry's Law, argh.
- henriquemaia 11y agoHow I read: How Norway Created _Salman Rushdie_.
- kzrdude 11y agoThat's an equally valid reading. The author is dead, after all. ;-)
- unusximmortalis 11y agoWell THANK you Norway!!! I simply LOVE sushi salmon, raw salmon. If it wasn't for you who knows if I would've got this pleasure :)
- suryon 11y agoScrew the sushi. Kimbab is the new hot thing.
- walkingolof 11y agoNorwegian farmed salmon are among the biggest sources of food-borne contaminants in a normal diet. It contains four times as much dioxin as the highest permissible limit for meat, eggs and milk.
- hellofunk 11y agoApparently this warning has been lifted: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/norway-farmed-salmon-safe-public-eat-article-1.2047012 http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/norway-farmed-sal...
- walkingolof 11y agoGo for wild catched cod (for example) from the Atlantic or Pacific instead, the food given to the Salmon contains large quantities of fish caught in the Baltic sea which is more or less unfit for human consumption.
- GlennS 11y agoI do think that smoked salmon makes better sushi than raw.
- pvaldes 11y agoProbably. I remember a wild salmon smoked with fir wood and with entire pepper grains in a small village in Sweden that was absolutely memorable. My parents sniffed the smoke, entered automatically in bloodhound mode and find a fisherman that was working in a lake beach and sell them one. I like also the raw but can come in several different qualities. Some are very good, other not so.
- ncnc 11y agoMost of the cultivated salmon is actually containing significant amounts of heavy metals (due to the sea fish they get fed). And it is also given large amounts of medication to prevent sickness and parasites. This all ends up on our plates... I love salmon, but have almost fully stopped eating it, lacking a trusted source. Also because the salmon get fed with seafish, cultivating them actually contributes to overfishing the oceans. There is a german documentary about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Sl_wjiOyI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Sl_wjiOyI
- sigma2015 11y agothe overfishing problem you mention is also addressed in "Cowspiracy" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3302820/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3302820/) which I highly recommend. Since few days available on Netflix Germany.
- cpach 11y agoFascinating! Here's another, longer article about this phenomenon: http://www.nortrade.com/sectors/articles/norways-introduction-of-salmon-sushi-to-japan/ http://www.nortrade.com/sectors/articles/norways-introductio...
- TheMagicHorsey 11y agoThere was actually a very sensible rule followed in China and Japan about eating raw fish. You only ate sea fish raw, while freshwater fish were always cooked. There's a good rationale behind this. Freshwater fish tend to carry parasites that can cross the species boundary between fish and human. Whereas, sea fish do not tend to carry such parasites. You can understand the reason for that based on natural selection. Its an exceedingly rare event for a sea fish to be eaten by a land mammal (at least it was on the scale of evolutionary time before modern times), so most parasites of sea fish have not evolved a mechanism to exist in land mammal bodies. Whereas fresh water fish are often eaten by land mammals, and so many strains of parasites have adapted to make a smooth transfer from fish to land mammal body. Its very sensible NOT to eat raw Salmon. Although they end up in the sea, they have two phases of life in bodies of fresh water where they can pick up parasites that can transfer to a human host.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- MagnumOpus 11y agoNo, according to that logic, you shouldn't eat raw beef, pork and chicken. Which is a highly advisable precaution - not following it will result in a high chance of critters like Taenia Saginata or Trichinella spiralis making a home inside you.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- munificent 11y agoTrichinella is actually vanishingly rare in US commercial pork today. Most cases these days come from boar and other wild game. http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/epi.html http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/epi.html
- pvaldes 11y agoIs because Diphyllobothriasis, cestode larvaes from freshwater fishes that can be very dangerous for humans; but the fish metazoan parasite that send more sushi lovers to the hospital is marine in fact. Anisakiasis by roundworm larvae in raw fish or squid normally is not a big problem but is painful, and can lead to serious health issues sometimes. Any competent japanese chef will know how to deal with it. European law obliges to restaurants to frozen all fish destined to be served as sushi just for this.
- jinushaun 11y agoThe more you know… The article mentions salmon being responsible for the popularity of sushi globally. I actually prefer salmon sushi over tuna sushi by far. In fact, if it wasn't for salmon, I probably would've never like sushi. My first few experiences were with tuna and I hated it each time.
- e12e 11y agoIronically, a large part of Norwegian Salmon is now owned by Mitsubishi: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/mitsubishi-to-buy-salmon-producer-for-1-39-billion/ http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/mitsubishi-to-buy-sal...
- pvaldes 11y agoDidn't know, but i'm not suprised. The history is much more interesting in fact. They seem to have invented the fishcoin with mediterranean resources: (2009): http://www.worldfishingtoday.com/news/default.asp?nyId=3387 http://www.worldfishingtoday.com/news/default.asp?nyId=3387 (2013): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-rigney/japan-bluefin-tuna_b_2504942.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-rigney/japan-bluefin-tuna...