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My favorite example of this is Japanese sushi. In Japan, where totally fresh fish is abundant and easy to purchase, the focus is entirely on the fish and rice.
by jaredklewis 10y ago
My favorite example of this is Japanese sushi. In Japan, where totally fresh fish is abundant and easy to purchase, the focus is entirely on the fish and rice. Most every dish is just raw fish and rice.
There are simple rolls which wrap, fish and rice in seaweed. Sometimes wa few, sparse other ingredients like shallots or cucumbers make there way into the roll.
Then, Sushi gets taken to America, and what I can only assume was a creative solution to the problem of limited access to fresh fish, sushi was transformed into the decadent "maki" rolls that dominate sushi menus in the US. Cheese, fruits, vegetables, fish, meats. US maki rolls that have nearly a dozen ingredients are not uncommon.
Both styles of sushi are amazing, though very different. More like cousins than the same type of cuisine.
Reminds me of how cocktails were invented during prohibition to mask the bad taste of moonshine. Japanese shushi is to American maki what wine is to martinis.
I think when cuisines get transported to foreign counties, they get changed to adapt to their new environment.
- ojbyrne 10y agoCocktails weren't invented during prohibition. http://www.snopes.com/cocktails-came-out-of-prohibition/ http://www.snopes.com/cocktails-came-out-of-prohibition/
- m_mueller 10y agoActually rice is the main focus in Japanese Sushi - it needs to be treated perfectly - soft and grained, yet sticky enough to just hold together, with salt and vinegar added to a point, pressed and eaten very quickly. Fish is just there to round off the rice. That's why Sushi chefs train for years just preparing the rice - cutting fish is the last step to learn.
- sooheon 10y agoI'm sure rife is important, but you're way over correcting. Fish is just there to round off the rice? Please.
- m_mueller 10y agoI stand by my comment. Any trained Sushi chef knows how to cut the fish properly, all they need is access to a good wholesale fish market like Tsukiji or one of its resellers to offer you some very nice fish - but the way they treat the rice is where you see the biggest difference between a trained sushi chef and a master. No matter where you go in Japan it's still way beyond what you'd get in expensive places abroad with a high likelihood though.
- sidegrid 10y agoHow long can it take to learn how to cook rice? Couple of hours?
- kod 10y agoHow long can it take to learn how to make a list of things for a computer to do? Couple of days?
- m_mueller 10y agoHere's a start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamae >It is a common Japanese legend that the truly great itamae-san ("san" is an honorific suffix) should be able to create nigirizushi in which all of the rice grains face the same direction. While that's definitely an exaggeration, it gives you an idea of the importance of rice in Japanese sushi. Basically, it's taking something that's naturally chaotic (like cooked rice grains that just stick together in whatever fashion), and bring their entropy down to become something ordered by using the most efficient motions possible. For that purpose they use hand fans and wood to control the moisture as well as very finely trained hand motions to control the shape of the nigiri as well as the alignments of the grains. All of that, just so the guest can pick it up with his/her chopsticks, and have it effortlessly fall apart in the mouth, in an explosion of flavour, like a two stage guided cluster bomb targeting your taste buds ;-). So, yes, you could probably just use an automatic cooker for the cooking process (although the masters sneeze at that of course, but it sure is standard in Japan nowadays up to a certain price level) - but cooking is the easy part, the fun starts after that.