Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: How Sushi Works

Episode Date: October 17, 2020

Sushi grew out of a way to ferment fish a couple thousand years ago and in the late 20th century began to take the world by storm. What began as traditional, rigid food has come to evolve with new delicious innovations being added to the original canon. Learn all about it in this classic episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Good morning, everyone. Happy Saturday. We're gonna take you back in time this week to July 15th, 2014, the little episode that we like to call How Sushi Works.

This is making me hungry, just thinking about it. And I remember eating sushi for probably like three or four days straight after we recorded this one. It's a good one, because Josh and I are both big sushi fans, and it was really cool to learn the history and sort of the ins and outs of how sushi works.

So here we go, everyone, with How Sushi Works. Welcome to Step You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always, and this is the dower, Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry, who's snortling over there, which is kind of like a laughing through your nose.

Yeah, I thought dower, I thought it meant like I'm gloomy or something. Yeah, you seem a little gloomy today. You kidding? No. You think the smile is fake? Yeah, that one. Man, I wish I had a picture of that.

We could put that on a t-shirt. Yeah. I could wear that t-shirt, and then you could get a picture of me wearing that t-shirt, and put that on a t-shirt, and wear that t-shirt, and so on and so forth, and we'd be like Ryan Gosling, and... Oh yeah, who did you do that one?

Macaulay Culkin. Right, yep. That's what we could do. I get to be Macaulay Culkin this time, though. This time? Yeah. All right, you're always making me be Ryan Gosling. I know, who wants that?

Nobody. How are you? I'm good, man. I got to tell you, so we're about to do sushi, by the way. This thing made me really hungry. Oh my God. I want sushi so bad now, and I have it for days now. Just remember the yawning episode,

and people are like, oh, I listen to this, and I yawn the entire time. Well, prepare to want sushi, everybody. Even if you don't like sushi or never had sushi, I guarantee you, you will want sushi by the end of this, or we will give you your money back for this episode. That's right. So you've had sushi?

Yeah, I mean, it's one of my favorite foods. I could live in Japan and eat sushi every day. Yes. I'm going to Japan next year, and I plan on eating sushi every day. I would not get sick of it. No, no, it'd be really tough, too. Especially with the variety of balls.

You know, everybody thinks sushi is basically like a little bite of rice with a bunch of ingredients tucked in it. Or on top of it. Or maybe it's like a little lump of rice with some fish on it or something. There's a whole galaxy of sushi out there. Yeah, especially when you go to Japan.

I mean, just prepare to have your mind blown. I mean, you've had it before, but my buddy Jason lives over there, and it's not like Sushi Avenue here in Decatur, Georgia. Does he ever mail you sushi? No. Probably wouldn't stay very well. No.

But if you figured out a way to stick it into one of those live organ courier things. It'd be great. I don't think so. Well, you know, if you eat raw sushi here, with the exception of tuna, and by here I mean the United States, it's not fresh.

It's been frozen by law, except for tuna. And I couldn't find out why tuna was the only exception, but all fish that's intended to be served raw has to be frozen. Flash frozen's fine. And then of course, thawed back out, but it can't just be from the ocean to your plate. Yeah, and before the pedantic ones among you

start emailing, Josh said sushi when he was talking about raw fish. Then in fact, sushi is rice, and that is sashimi. True. Thank you. I'm using the colloquial version. Exactly. When people say, hey, let's go out for sushi,

it's like a genre of food. Like, hey, let's go out for Italian. And you don't go, and they say, actually, that's a Sicilian item of foods you're eating, not Italian. If this is ringing true to you, and it's reminding you of yourself, take you need to do some personality changes.

If this is your friend, then you should surround yourself with higher quality people in that. Yeah, well, I mean, go out for sushi. That means you can have miso soup, and that means going out for sushi. And you can have like edamame and seaweed salad, and that's all part of the experience

that's going out for sushi in this country. It basically is shorthand for Japanese. You're going out for Japanese. Yes, sort of, but you... Not hibachi. No. Hibachi's not Japanese. It's strictly Iraqi, Iyoki, American.

Oh, is it? Yes. I mean, they do have hibachi girls and stuff like that, but they experienced the Benihana version. Totally American invention. I've never been to one of those places. Oh, yeah, I mean, it's like there's a guy like chopping and cooking and going,

hey, and like tossing stuff into his hat and everything. Just never been. Yeah. All right, so Chuck. Yeah. Thank you for pointing out the sushi thing, because I am going to do that a lot. Yeah.

And we should say when, if you are specifically talking about sushi in Japan, you're talking about vinegared rice. Yes. Is roughly what the word means. Yeah, medium or short grain vinegared rice. The stuff that's on top, the neta, which is a fish seafood topping that you put on sushi,

is actually that raw fish is called sashimi, like you said. Yeah, and you can eat that by itself as well. If it's fried stuff, it's called tempura. Yeah. Different types of sushi have different kinds of names, but let's get into this, shall we? Let's talk about the history, because this whole thing didn't even start in Japan.

Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I mean, if you look at sushi, there's a lot of folklore surrounding it, a lot of mysterious origins. One of the old wives tales from Japan, is that funny? It just appeared out of nowhere one day mysteriously. No, it just means it can't been one. I know, I'm just teasing.

You're joshing. I am joshing the chuck. That's right. There's an old Japanese wives tale about an elderly lady who would hide her rice from thieves and osprey-ness, and she would forget where they were, and they would ferment the ricewood and the seafood that the osprey would eat would fall down in there,

and voila, that was the first sushi. Yes. It's a great story. But it's a lie. Yeah, it's not a lie, it's folklore. Which are lies? I guess it's told by old ladies. It's a very harsh way to say it.

So, the earliest sushi supposedly was around in Southeast Asia in, I don't know, like 2,500 years ago. They were taking cooked rice, which does ferment, and packing fish in it. And then the fermentation of the rice, yeah, it kept it as long before refrigeration, but it also kind of pickled the fish. But then once the fish was pickled

over the course of like weeks, and they would place it under like a heavy stone or something like that, to basically compress it. And once the fish was pickled, they'd throw the rice out and just eat the fish. Yes, and in fact, a sushi kitchen can be called a suki-ba, or a pickling place. Yeah, that's, bam.

The original version of sushi was basically fermented fish that was fermented with rice, pickled fish fermented with rice. Yes. Then they threw the rice out, somebody said, well, wait a minute, what does this rice taste like? Oh my God, this is delicious. And what would it taste like

if I put this fermented fish on the rice, and they went, oh my God, this is even better. So they said, well, let's try this a different way. If we're not gonna throw the fish, or throw the rice out, let's actually gut the fish. And this is the 10th century, by the way. And by now, this is in Japan. Let's gut the fish.

Soak it in sake, which is Japanese rice wine, and then pack that thing full of rice, and let that ferment. And then after a few weeks, we'll just slice it, and then eat that. Yeah, and each of these steps basically is speeding the process up a lot. Like the very first process took about a year and a half.

Oh, did it? And it was only for the uber-wealthy. Once they added sake, though, that speeded that up. That speeded that up. And that stuff still around is called narazushi, or rice sushi, I'm sorry, ripe sushi. Yeah, and apparently you can still get that, and it's a little like, for your American taste buds,

might taste a little funny. But I'll bet once you get used to it, you're like, this is, I have to have this all the time. Probably so. So then in the 1600s, early 1600s, Japanese military leader named Tokugawa Ayiasu, and we're gonna do our best with these Japanese pronunciations.

Yes. Give us a break. He moved the capital from Kyoto to Ido, which would later become Tokyo. And by the 19th century, it was a Hopin city. And in the mid 1700s, they sped up that process a little bit more by skipping the sake and using rice vinegar.

Yeah, which made it like a matter of days after that. Actually just a couple hours. Right. Which is what I was following up with. Yeah, which is, I mean, that's super quick. And then you would slice it into pieces, and again, just cutting that preparation time. Yeah, and then in Kyoto, which was the former seat

of power in Japan before it was moved to Ido, or Tokyo, they would take that vinegar and some ingredients, maybe a little cucumber, a little dried seaweed, which is known as nori, and they'd put it in a box and press it together. And you'd have Oshisushi, which is Osaka style sushi. It's like a square of sushi, right? Yeah.

And there was a guy who lived in Ido in Tokyo in the 1820s. And his name was Yohai Hanaya. And he had a little cart where he was making Oshisushi. And everybody liked it and all that. But apparently, as the story goes, some of his customers were like, I'm very busy and important, and I don't have time for you to press this into a box.

Just hurry up, make it snappy. So he took some of that rice, that vinegar flavored rice, and rolled it up in his hand a little bit. And then he would take some fish that was taken out of Tokyo Bay, or Edo Mei. Yeah, I mean, he was set up right there on the water. Exactly. And he cut off a little bit of slice

and put it in there, maybe with the streak of wasabi and handed it to the people. He said, here, jerk, is that fast enough? That took me like three minutes. Exactly. And they said, well, by God, this is Japanese street food. That is fast food that we can use our hands for and eat in two bites and nigiri sushi.

What a lot of people think of as sushi was born. The modern sushi was born right there in that food stall. That's right. And then the great Kanto earthquake hit Tokyo, and land prices went down. And all of a sudden, there was a lot of retail space. And so the sushi cart said, hey, maybe we should move these things inside

and start a legit restaurant. And it happened all over the place. And by the 1950s, it was, the sushi restaurant was where it was at, basically. In the 1930s, thanks to refrigeration, you could chip fish. By the 70s in the post-war economy, people were loving the stuff.

Yeah. It started to boom all over Japan and then started to spread to other parts of the world. It did. And in the United States, it was first adopted in the 60s in Los Angeles. Of course it was Los Angeles. There was a place called Kawafuku.

And that was the first big American-embraced sushi restaurant in the United States. And then the yuppies came. And you think like 80s and sushi, right? I do. I do. I always have, yeah. But apparently it wasn't until like the 90s

that sushi really hit New York. And it was because of an unknown man named Robert De Niro Oh yeah. Who talked the chef of Nobu, whose name is Nobuyuki Matsushisa. Oh, I'm gonna be in so much trouble when I get home. So De Niro talked the chef of Nobu. Nobuyuki Matsushisa.

I think that's it. It's really close if not to open Nobu, which was already an LA icon in New York in 94. So apparently sushi didn't hit New York big time until the 90s, even though I think of it as like total American psycho fodder. Yeah, I mean, it was around, I think it probably the explosion didn't hit.

I mean, it was very much a California thing. That first restaurant was in Little Tokyo in LA. And then in the 70s, they opened one in Hollywood called Osho in 1970. And that was when the celebrity started going and they was like, oh my God, this is so exotic and delicious. And I could eat it every day.

And something really, really big happened in 1973. There was a place in Los Angeles, and there was a sushi chef there, his name was Manashita. And Manashita created an inside out roll, a maki, which is maki sushi is a hand roll, or no, it's a roll that you use a bamboo mat for. We'll get into it. So was it inside out or regular?

Inside out maki roll with avocado, crab, and cucumber. That's right, yes. Okay, and he made the California roll and that became the entree. Like that's the gateway drug to sushi for a lot of Americans. Yeah, cause it doesn't have the raw fish in there. If you're creeped out by that,

it's like you can start on the California roll and be like, oh, this is just sort of like a salad. Right, and then once you go and eat California rolls enough times, you're like, well, maybe I will try a bite of that, and once you do, you're never going back. It's like I can still eat a California roll, like a bite of it or something like that, but I'm more like, that's a waste of sushi.

Like I want good nigiri or... Yeah, if I've got that, I'll put that $6 towards something else on there for sure. But I'll make a California roll at home cause it's... Oh, you make it my home? Yeah, nice. And well, we'll get to all that. So Chuck, that's the history of sushi up to right now.

Now. Um, yeah, let's talk about fish in a second. Let's take a message break first. Stuff you should know. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper,

because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. But it's Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, so we're talking about fish, raw fish is a common ingredient when you go to a sushi

restaurant, but if you're not into that, there are plenty of other offerings. You've talked about tempura, we talked about the California roll, you can use veggies. This article says virtually any type of vegetable, but I completely disagree with that. Yeah. You're not going to roll up broccoli or cauliflower in sushi, are you? No, but man, I am crazy for ground up cauliflower as like a rice substitute or something like that or like a mashed potato substitute. Have you had it?

Like colletators, like pureed cauliflower? So good. Yeah. I've been making colletators for years. Dude, I spent my entire life up until like a couple of months ago hating cauliflower. I never told you about colletators? No, I've heard of it before. I just never really tried it, but you and me and I started making it and I'm like, wow,

this is good. Yeah. And it's, you know, I hate it when people say it tastes just like something. It doesn't taste just like mashed potatoes, but it's got its consistency and it's good. Right. It mimics the consistency. Not the taste. Yeah.

But the taste isn't too far off. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. It doesn't taste like rotted horse meat compared to like mashed potatoes or something, but I think it's like, it's its own distinct thing. It is. So that's my treatise on cauliflower. Yeah.

You won't put cauliflower in your sushi though. But you can find asparagus in sushi fairly frequently. Yeah. Cucumber. Sure. Well, I guess that's it. No, there's some more stuff. Mushrooms.

Oh yeah, mushrooms. That's a big staple of a lot of sushi. That was the third one. Yeah. Some nice shiitakes. Boom. Have you been to Umi Sushi yet? No.

It is amazing. Yeah. The one I've been on lately is, shoot, I can't think of the name of it now, Miso I think is the name of it in the Old Fourth Ward. And it's good. A little pricey, but you know. Oh yeah. Miso izakaya.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's supposed to be real good. It's good stuff. I guess Umi Sushi is kind of, but they have like an old traditional sushi chef run in the place there. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, in America you're going to find some variations, and in fact the inside-out role apparently is a totally American thing, even though it has now since found its way over to Japan, but it did not originate in Japan. No. The reverse role or inside-out. It was like an echo that came back by storm. And if you don't know what we're talking about, that's when the rice is on the outside of

the roll, and the nori is on the inside instead of the other way around. Yes. All right. So Chuck, if you are going to use fish or you're ordering at a sushi place, most of the fish you're going to see is saltwater, sea fish. Yeah. You don't want to trout roll. No.

And the reason why is because- Or a bass roll. Freshwater fish are-