5 Things You May Not Know About Sushi

No, sushi is not the most common dish in Japan, far from it. It is not even that common to find Japanese people who have sushi more than a couple of times every month.

So what do Japanese people eat? A lot of things! Generally a "main dish" (called "okazu") accompanied with rice and miso soup (called "miso shiru"). The "main dish" can be fried fish, fried pork, curry-based stew (cf picture), chicken skewers, etc... The Japanese cuisine is very varied.

Photo author: Hidehiko H, reproduced here with his kind permission

One of the main "topping" of sushi is raw fish. However, there are many types of sushi which do not include raw fish. The most common one is "tamago" or "gyoku" (with omelette) and others include cucumber, condiment, etc...

Actually, meat sushi are more and more popular, especially outside Japan (with chicken, beef, etc...).

This is a tricky one but the sushi etiquette requires you to dip the fish (or topping) of the sushi in the soya sauce, not the rice. Why not? First, the rice would absorb the soya sauce and make the sushi too salty. Also, this may leave some rice grains to go to the soya sauce.

However, as this is not so easy to do (with chopsticks, at least), it is ok to dip the rice part of the sushi in the soya sauce, as long as you don't "bath" the sushi in it. 

You may want to give your friend/child/spouse a sushi bit but if so then take it with your chopsticks and set it on the other person's plate. You should never transfer food (sushi or not) from chopsticks to chopsticks.

This has to do with Japanese funeral rites and how bones are transferred from chopsticks to chopsticks.

Image courtesy of smokedsalmon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My wife is Japanese and I cannot tell how often people ask her if she can make sushi. It would be the same as asking a French person if he can bake a baguette or a German person if he can make sausages. 

Also, remember the first point of this article. It is not that common to eat sushi in Japan and it is so easy to find everywhere that there is little incentive for Japanese people to learn how to make sushi.

I hope you enjoyed this article. If you want to know more about the Japanese cuisine in general, please have a look at this article. Otherwise, I have written a cute article about Japanese expressions you have never heard about before.