SYSK Selects: How Sushi Works

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.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good morning everyone, Happy Saturday. We're gonna take you back
in time this week to July fourteen, 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 at sushi fans, and

(00:22):
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
Stuff you should know, a production of My Heart Radios
How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

(00:47):
Clark with me as always is the dour Charles w
Chuck Bryant, and Jerry, who's snortling over there, which is
kind of like a like a laughing through your nose. Yeah,
what I thought that were? I thought it meant like
I'm gloomy or something. Yeah, you seem a little gloomy today. No,
do you think the smile is fake? Yeah? That one

(01:11):
man always I had a picture of that. We can
put that on a T shirt and then 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. It would be like Ryan
Gosling and um, yeah, who do you do that? Mcaulay culkin, right, yep,

(01:33):
that's get to McAuley culkin this time though. This time. Yeah, alright, alright,
you're always making me be Ryan Gosling. Who wants that? Nobody?
How are you? I'm good man, I gotta 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 have for days now. Just remember

(01:56):
the Yawning episode and people are like, oh, I listen
to this and I you all in the entire time. Yeah, well,
prepared 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. It's
one of my favorite foods. I could live in Japan

(02:18):
and eat sushi every day. Yes, I'm going to Japan
next year and I plan on eating sushi every day
I would have I would not get sick of it. No, No,
it'd be really tough to Yeah, especially with the variety
of Sure. Do you know everybody thinks sushi is basically like, um,
a little bite of rice with a bunch of ingredients
tucked in it or on top of it. Yeah, or

(02:39):
maybe it's like a little little lump of rice with
some you know, fish on it or something. There's a
whole galaxy of sushi out there, especially when you go
to Japan. I mean, just prepared to have your mind blown.
I mean you've had it before. But yeah, my buddy
Jason lives up it there, and it's like, it's not
like sushi Avenue here, Indicator Georgia. Does he ever mail
you sushi? It probably wouldn't stay very well. Um, but

(03:01):
if you figured out a way to stick it into
one of those live organ courier things, it would be great. Uh.
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, Um, it's not fresh.

(03:22):
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 is fine, and then of course
thought back out. But it can't just be from the
ocean to your plate. Yeah, and before the pedantic ones

(03:42):
among you start emailing, Josh said sushi when he was
talking about raw fish and infects. Sushi is rice and
that is sushimi using the colloquial Exactly when people say, hey,
let's go out for sushi, it's like a h a
genre of food, like hey, let's go out for Italian

(04:03):
and you don't go and they say, actually, that's a
Sicilian item of food. Yeah. If this is ringing true
to you and it's reminding you of yourself, take a 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, I mean go out for sushi.
That means you can have me so soup, and that

(04:24):
means going out for sushi and you can have uh
like at a mamma and a seaweed salad. And that's
all part of the experience that's going out for sushi. Yes,
in this country, it basically is shorthand for Japanese. You're
going out for Japanese, Yes, sort of, but not habach
Habachi is not Japanese. Is strictly a Rocky Aoki American

(04:46):
Oh is it? Yes? I mean they do have habaschi
girls and stuff like that, but they experience the benni
hana 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 toss and stuff
into his hat and everything. Alright, So chuck um, thank
you for pointing out the sushi thing, because I am

(05:08):
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 um. Vinegard rice is roughly what the
word means, medium or short grain good rice. The stuff
that's on top um the neta, which is a fish
seafood topping that you put on sushi is actually that

(05:31):
raw fish is called sushimi. Like you said, Yeah, 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 um, let's get into this, shall we.
Let's let's talk about the history, because this whole thing
didn't even start in Japan. Yeah, it's pretty interesting, uh.
I mean, if you look at sushi, there's a lot

(05:52):
of folklore surrounding it, um, a lot of mysterious origins. Um.
One of the old wives tales from Japan is that fine,
it just appeared out of no wear one day mysteriously.
Uh No, it just means it can't been there. Now,
I'm just teasing. You're joshing, I am joshing the chuck.
That's right. Uh. There's an old Japanese wive style about
an elderly lady who would hide her rice from thieves

(06:14):
and osprey nests, and she would forget where they were,
and they would ferment the rice wood and then the
seafood that the osprey would eat would fall down in
there and waila, that was the first sushi. Yes, it's
a great story, but but it's a lie. Not necessarily
it's no, it's not a lies folklore wi her lies.
I guess it's told by old ladies. Very harsh way

(06:35):
to say it. Um. So there's the the earliest sushi
supposedly was around in in Southeast Asia in I don't
know years ago. They were taking cooked rice which does ferment,
and packing fish in it, and then the fermentation of
the rice, yeah, I kept it long before refrigeration, but

(06:58):
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 once the fish was pickled, they throw the rice
out and to seat the fish. Yes, and in fact,
a sushi kitchen can be called a suki bar or
a pickling place. Yeah, that's bam. The original version of

(07:22):
sushi was basically fermented fish that was fermented with rice,
pickled fish fermented with rice. Then they threw the rice out.
Somebody said, well, wait a minute, 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.

(07:43):
If we're not gonna throw the fish or throw the
rice out, let's actually gut the fish. And this is
the tenth century, by the way, and by now this
is in Japan. Um let's get the fish, soak it
in saki, which is Japanese rice wine, and then pack
that thing full of rice and like that from it.
And then after a few weeks we'll just slice it

(08:06):
and then eat that. Yeah, And each each of these
steps basically is speeding the process up a lot. Like
the very first process took about a year and a half,
did it And it was only for like the uber wealthy.
Once they added sake though, that speeded that up. That
speeded that up, and that stuff still around. It's called
nara sushi or rice sushi. Yeah, I'm sorry, ripe sushi,

(08:27):
and apparently you can still get that. And it's a
little like for your American taste buds, it might taste
a little funny, but I'll bet once you get used
to it, you're like, this is I have to have
us all the time. Probably so uh So. Then in
the sixteen hundreds, early sixteen hundreds of Japanese military leader
name Tokugawa a Yasu. We're gonna do our best with
these Japanese pronunciations. Yes, give us a break. Uh He

(08:50):
moved the capitol from Kyoto to Itto, which would later
become Tokyo, and by the nineteenth century it was a
Hoppin city, and in the mid seventeen undreds they sped
up that process a little bit more by skipping the
saki and using rice vinegar, yeah, which made it like
a matter of days after that, uh, for just a

(09:11):
couple of hours, right, which was what I was following
up with, Yeah, which is I mean that's super quick.
And then you would slice it into pieces and uh
again just cutting that preparation time. Yeah. And then in
um Kyoto, which was the former UH seat of power
in Japan before it was moved to Ato or Tokyo,
um they would take that vinegar and some ingredients, maybe

(09:34):
a little cucumber, a little dried seaweed which is known
as nori, and they put it in a box and
press it together, and you'd have oshi sushi, which is
osaka style sushi. It's it's like a square of sushi. Right.
And there was a guy who lived in Ato in
Tokyo in the eight twenties, and his name was Yohi Hanaya,

(09:56):
and he had a little cart where he was making
oshi sushi and everybody he 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's
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

(10:18):
or Edo may 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 was sabi, and handed it to
the 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 eating
two bites and nigiri sushi. Uh, what a lot of

(10:42):
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 Canto 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

(11:03):
by the nineteen fifties it was the sushi restaurant was
where it was at. Yes, basically in the nineteen thirties,
next to refrigeration, you could chip fish. By the seventies
and the post war economy, people were loving the stuff. Yeah,
So it started to boom in other like all over
Japan and then started to spread to other parts of

(11:23):
the world. It did, and in the United States it
was first adopted in the sixties in Los Angeles. Of
course it was Los Angeles. There was a place called
Kawa Fuku and that was the first big American embraced
um sushi restaurant in the United States. And and then
the yuppies came and you think, like eighties in sushi, right,

(11:46):
do you? I do? I always have, Yeah, But apparently
it wasn't until like the nineties that sushi really hit
New York And it was because of a unknown man
named Robert de Niro who who talked this the chef
of Nobu, whose name is uh Nobu Yuki Matsu. I'm

(12:08):
going to be in so much trouble when I get home.
So de Niro talked the chef of Nobu Nobu Yuki Matsushisa.
I think that's it. Yeah, it's really close, if not
to open Nobu, which was already in l a Icon
in New York in So apparently sushi didn't hit New
York big time until the nineties, even though I think

(12:29):
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. Um,
that first restaurant was in Little Tokyo in l A
And then in the seventies they opened one in Hollywood
called Oshow in nineteen seventy and that was you know,
that was when the celebrity started going and they was like, oh,

(12:51):
oh my god, this is so exotic and delicious and
I could eat it every day. And um, something really
really big happened in nineteen seventy three. Um, there was
a place in Los Angeles, uh, and there was a
sushi chef there. His name was Manashita, and Manashita created
an inside out roll a maki, which is maki sushi

(13:14):
is a hand roll or no, it's a role that
use a bamboo mat for We'll get into it. So
was it inside out, a regular inside out maki roll
with avocado, crab and cucumber. That's right, yes, okay, And
he made the California role and that became the entree.
Like that's the gateway drug to sushi for a lot

(13:34):
of Americans. Yeah, because it doesn't have the raw fish
in there. If you're creeped out by that, it's you
can start on the California roll and be like, oh,
this is just sort of like a salad, all 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

(13:54):
of it or something like that. But I'm more like,
that's a waste of sushi, Like I want I want
good nagiri here. Yeah, if I've got that, I'll put
that six dollars towards something else in the h but
I'll make a California roll at home because it's uh,
oh you make it my home. Yeah. Nice, And well
we'll get it. We'll get to all that. So Chuck,
that's the history of sushi up to right now. Now, Um, yeah,

(14:20):
Let's let's talk about fish in a second. Let's take
a message break first. Okay, so we're talking about fish.

(14:41):
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 tempora, We
talked about the California California roll You can there can
be uh, you can use veggies. This article says virtually
any type of vegetable, but I completely disagree with that. Yeah, Like,
you're not gonna roll up broccoli or cauliflower and sushi,

(15:03):
are you? No? But man, I am crazy for ground
up cauliflower as like a rice substitute or something like that,
or like mashed potatoes substue, like collie tatos like purede
califlowers so good. Yeah. I've been making collie tatoes for years, dude.
I spend my entire life up until like a couple
of months ago, hating cauliflower. I never told you about

(15:25):
collie tatos. No, I've heard of it before. I just
never really tried it. But you mean, and I like
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 but
it it's got its consistency, then it's good. Right. It
mimics the consistency, not the taste. Yeah, but the taste

(15:47):
isn't too far off. I mean, yeah, it doesn't taste
like rotted horsemeat 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. You won't
put cauliflower in your sushi, though, but you can find
asparagus and sushi fairly frequently. Yeah, cucumber. Uh, well, I

(16:08):
guess that's it. No, there's some more stuff. Mushrooms. Oh yeah, mushrooms.
It's a big staple of a lot of sushi. That
was the third one. Yeah, it's some nice shitakis boom.
Have you been to Umi Sushi yet? Uh? Now, it
is amazing. Yeah. The one I've been on lately is
um shoot. I can't think of the name of it now. Uh.

(16:30):
Mis I think is the name of it in the
old fourth ward And it's good, little pricey, but you know,
oh yeah Misosakaya. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's supposed to be
really good. It's good stuff. It's more um, it's like
now vou sushi, which I guess Umi sushi is kind of.
But they have like a like an old traditional sushi
chef running the place there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean
in America, you're gonna find some variations. And in fact,

(16:51):
the inside out roll 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, right, No,
the reverse roll 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

(17:12):
on the inside instead of the other way around. Yes,
all right, so Chuck, if you arguing use fish or
you're ordering out of a sushi place, the most of
the fish you're gonna see is um saltwater see see fish?
Yeah you do. You don't want to trout roll? No,
And the reason why it is because freshwater fish are
much more prone to parasites the saltwater fish. Parasites don't

(17:35):
like salt as much, right, yeah, um, But occasionally you
will see a freshwater seafood. There's like a type of
eel that's really good that's fresh water. Yeah, I love
the eel. What is that? Always get the two eels confused,
and I always get like, after all these years, I
still can't commit it to memory, and about every third

(17:56):
time order the wrong one. Oh really, I don't think
I've ever had the saltwater eel. Yeah, I mean it's
not bad, of course, but I like the like the
freshwater more. Yeah, yeah, I do too. And you can
buy I make that's one of the ones that make
at home. You can there's a great Japanese market over
by the cab Farmer's market and you can buy it
and the refrigerator and they make it in the oven.
And yeah, because that's the thing. If you order the
freshwater eel like it does, it doesn't come raw like

(18:18):
it's seared or something like that. Seared then like a
karyaki sauce. So delicious it is. Man, you know what's okay?
So you're gonna have freshwater fish um or freshwater seafood
most of the time. Saltwater saltwater, thank you, man, and
um one of the most highly prized seafood that you're

(18:40):
going to find in sushi of any type is tuna.
So and there's different types of tuna. Um. They they'll
they'll use a yellow fin, big guy, blue fine, and
blue fin is the most expensive one. Yeah, And apparently
it wasn't until the fifties that the Japanese came to
prize blue fin, like before they used it for calf food.
Like they wouldn't even eat that stuff. Yeah, that's what

(19:01):
I heard, Like the belly is was originally and now
it's like the prize and the belly now or used
to be, like they wouldn't eat it. Yeah. The actually
the record for the highest priced fish ever sold I
believe anywhere um was sold at the Tokyo Fish Market
last year. It was a four ninety pound blue fin tuna.
How much at one point eight million dollars toly crap

(19:24):
for just that tuna, and I guarantee they made their money.
And then some man, yeah it's a big tuna. I
feel kind of bad for that guy, even though I
love to eat him so much. The tuna, you know, well,
there's definitely a moral thread that runs through tuna or
not sushi, like apparently yellow fin tuna, farm raised tuna
or raised a lot like veal and fatten until their

(19:44):
muscles deteriorate alive um and and then of course there's
the have you seen the raw or live frog video?
There is a type of sushi that is it's called
um iki zukuri, which is live sushi. And there's an

(20:04):
iki zukuri video. And if you have a light stomach
at all or anything like that, are bothered by animals
being killed, like you should not watch this. But the
point is you eat the thing while it's basically part
of it is still alive on the plate looking at you,
like this frog is sitting there blinking. It's a frog.

(20:26):
There's a frog, and I can't remember what the other
one is, but there's They showed two things being prepared.
It's not have you have you seen Old Boy the original?
Remember he eats that squid live. That's a that's live sushi.
Like that was real? Yeah, not for me. Yeah, you
get pretty adventurous. That would you do that? Probably just

(20:46):
to try it? Yeah, I mean, it's just like, I
know everything is killed that we eat, but it's just like,
I don't know, being confronted with it, who knows that.
I can imagine some of the people who are into
like that slow food movement are like, well, yeah, that's
the way you should do it. You should have to
confront the death while you eat. No. I mean a
lot of people would say it's hypocritical to not do that,

(21:08):
you know, right, but a lot of but a hypocrite,
A lot of people are comfortable with that. Emily won't
eat anything that reminds her of an animal, Like she
didn't even like bones in her chicken. Yeah. Uh. And
like if someone served her a fish with a head
on it, like fully cooked, she would just be like, no, no, no, no,
that fish is looking at me. It's like the duck
and a Christmas story. Yeah, he's smiling. Uh. Okay, So

(21:34):
we're talking about tuna. Tuna is delicious, Salmon is delicious,
yellowtail and hamachi and surf clam, and there's all sorts
of delicious seafood that you can get on your sushi
or in your rolls, and then you just spread out
from there. If there's a fried chicken in there, it
might be a little too americanized, Although if that's what
you're into, then great, well they'd be considered temporal chicken

(21:57):
in that case. Yeah. But if there's fried chicken and
mayonnaise rolled up in rice. Then this sounds kind of good.
Well no, but it's is it sushi? Well, Kenny Rogers Roasters.
I feel like there's been kind of you know, there's
definitely a traditional thread of sushi, right, yeah, I don't know,
mind mixing it up a little bit, and there's like
traditional preparations and then there's traditional ingredients. But then it's

(22:21):
like you said, you know, in the seventies, when the
California roll was made here in America, it was sent
back and now you can get a California role pretty
much anywhere in Japan, and it's expanded from there. So
I think, yeah, I think sushi is kind of this
evolving thing. I've seen cereals added. Have you seen that
corn flakes or rice crispies on top? Yeah, I'm not

(22:42):
into that, either for crunch yea or or or squirting
a bunch of sauce on top. I'm not a big
fan of that either. Yeah. Well, that's another thing that
we'll talk about when we talk about how to eat sushi.
But really there's a lot of sushi that's prepared that
you're not supposed to do anything to except eat. Yeah. True,
So I guess we should finish what can be in

(23:03):
sushi thing by mentioning row and tomago. Row is the
fish eggs, like the little delicious orange. It's almost like caviar. Yeah,
and there can be a little tiny ones and larger ones.
I'm sure there's a difference in the name. Do you know.
I didn't look that up. No, Jerry's nodding. Is there
a difference in the name. I'm sure it's not necessarily

(23:23):
by size, but probably by fish. Yeah. I think the
smelt row is the smaller I think so. Yeah, the
little little tiny beads. Yeah, and that's usually added with
a roll or on top of something, and the other
larger ones. A lot of times that's just wrapped in
the nori and that's all you're eating. Yeah, Or there's
just like one on top of the thing. Oh yeah,
like a little bead for presentation. Yeah, I want to say,

(23:43):
a coil egg on top of a legs. Yesterday, this
was raw. Okay, I didn't realize it was going to
be raw. I ate it anyway, Like you said, I'm adventurous,
but man, I was like, I'm never ordering that again.
Was it not good? No? I'm not too big gun
raw eggs um except strangely in like a tataki or

(24:05):
um carpaccio or something like that. Yeah, yeah, I that's weird.
I guess. I guess I'll just have to keep ordering
it then, whether I like it or not. All right,
Tomago is egg in sushi. But it is cooked and
it's like it's an it's an omelet. It's it's it's
made by adding little layers of egg. I've seen some
people like bake it in a pan. It's probably the

(24:27):
shortcut method. There's probably more traditional method. But um, it's
almost like because it's sweet ish umelets, it's almost like
a dessert sushi. Yeah. And that's it's like an inch
stick and a slice and you put it on some
sushi rice with a little band of nori tied around it,
and that's delicious as well. Avocado, so you say it avocado? Uh,

(24:50):
that is very popular and that means tuna of the
land in Japan. Yeah, that's their The word for avocado
means tuna of the land. It's pretty cool. Yeah, avocado
is like a great addition to any thing. Yeah, I agree,
and very good for you too. It really is the
good fat, yes, yeah, good for your heart and your brain. Um,
what else goes along with sushi? The soy sauce the

(25:10):
show you Yeah, it's the type of soy sauce and
like you can. You can dip your sushi and soy
sauce if you prefer, but you're supposed to use it
very sparingly. Yea. And supposedly you're not supposed to dip
the rice either. No, I drown it. I'm just you
want to talk about how to eat sushi the proper way? Uh? Sure, Okay,

(25:31):
I don't do it, that's fine. Yeah, a lot of
people eat it with chopsticks. Yeah. Supposedly it's an insult
to the sushi chef, um to drown your sushi and
rice drown it and that soy sauce you mean? Yes? Um?
And where would I be without you just saying wrong
stuff here and there? No big deal? Um. So basically,
let's say you have a piece of nagiri, which is

(25:52):
just a little lump of sushi with um, like some
some topping on it. Yeah, say tuna, okay, Uh, you
kind of lightly grab the nagiri on one side with
your on both sides with your fingers yes, you don't
need to use chopsticks. Sushi was originally a finger food,
and um, you can feel free to eat it the

(26:12):
traditional way using your hands. Um, So you grab the
sides kind of lightly but firmly. You tilt it over.
You tilt this out, you tilt the nagori over, and
then you just basically have it. So you're grabbing your
holding onto the tuna and holding it almost like a basket,
so the rice is on top and the tune is
on the bottom. You just flipped your sushi over. If

(26:33):
you want a little bit to show you, you can
just kinda just barely like pass it through to show
you the soy sauce. Yes, of just the seafood. You're
not supposed to touch the rice to it. Yeah, that's
what you take. Um, one bite. Depending on the size,
you can put the whole thing in your mouth and
eat it. But you want to put it the topping

(26:54):
side down, and then if if it's a big piece
of nagiri, then um, you and bite it and then
eat it in two pieces. All right, here's Chuck's method.
I take it and I dumped the entire thing and
a big bowl of soy sauce and then I pull
it out and I stick it in my mouth and
chew it up and eat it all, and then I

(27:15):
wash it down with the SUPPORTO. Well that's customary, and
I'm a happy guy. You would probably like chi rashi sushi,
which is basically a bowl of rice with sushi toppings. Yeah,
I could. I could be down with that suc Is
there the nori in there? Though? Because I love the nori?
I think everything you want in there, Okay, whatever kind
of sushi you want, it's just like in a bowl.

(27:36):
It's just like a KFC bowl, but with sushi. Yeah.
Or oh man, what are those awful beef ball places
out west? Yoshi Naki or something beef bowl like in
the shopping malls. Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
I can't remember the name of them. Are they not good? Well,
I mean you get you tell me, you get like
a three pound beef and rice bowl for like three dollars.

(27:57):
Oh that sounds good. I don't think it's They're known
of their high quality meats and so by beef, U
mean cat yoshinor what is it called. It's a chain.
They're all over l A. Yeah, I know you t
I'm talking about I don't think they have them here
in Georgia. Uh we sabi. I don't do the wasabi
just because I don't like the taste. Um. I know,

(28:20):
most people like to put it in their soy sauce
and mix it up. Apparently that is an insult as well. Uh,
it's it's abnormal. That's what Yumi does though. Yea, she
puts in his soy sauce, puts a lot of it
in there. Yeah, so does Emily. She loves that stuff.
But the thing is is most sushi is going to
already have a little streak of wasabi on top of
the rice, beneath the topping, so you don't necessarily need any.

(28:42):
And if you've ever wondered why your nostrils are suddenly
clear and you're breathing very easily even though you didn't
use any with sabi, it's because it was already on there. Yeah.
And here in the United States, you're not eating with
sabi anyway. Nope, although you can get it at Umi Sushi,
oh really, but it's gonna cost you. Yeah. So that's
the fact of the podcast. For me. What you're eating
is horse radish and mustard paste. That's dyed green, and

(29:07):
they call it was sabi was sabi. When people say
it's Japanese horse radish, it actually isn't even horse radish.
It's it's in that fan. It's like a cousin of
horse radish. And it is expensive. It goes by the
river and you're eating the root. It lives in a
van down by the river. But uh, yeah, apparently it's
so pricey. Like you, you're you've probably never had real
was sabi unless you're like high salutin like you and

(29:29):
go to fancy sushi places. Yes, I'm sure noboo has
real with sabi. Just like a little gentleman, I wear
a velvet jacket and velvet shorts with knee socks, which
is a little hat, and they sing, well they served me,
it's wonderful. Well, that's funny that you mentioned that, because
being a sushi chef in Japan you're also supposed to

(29:52):
be kind of part performer. It's very social thing to
sit at the sushi bar. Yeah, you're you're not necessarily
performing like at a habachi play. It's not like that.
You're performing, not a clown, You're you're you're just you're friendly. Yeah,
you're helpful. You want the person to feel like they
are welcome and that they they are being led in

(30:12):
on your expertise. Yeah, like ask if you've never been
and you want to try it out, sit at the
sushi bar and ask I like it anyway, just because
I like to watch it. But um asked the chef, like,
hey man, what's what's good today? And I say, hey man,
because there's still a lot of discrimination, um in Japan,
even with women becoming sushi chefs. Oh yeah, it's still

(30:35):
a thing. Yes, it is, chuck, Yeah, which is no good. Um.
And apparently regardless of your gender, if you're a sushi chef, um,
you are required to work at least two years if
you're working at a decent sushi place. Yeah. It sounds
like a lot, but it used to be ten. Yeah, well,
two years just to learn to make the rice and

(30:55):
then another year of training with a knife. Yes, and
that's in Japan. Here in America they're turning them out
because there's just such a need. Right. But once you're
a trained sushi chef, like you can become a journeyman
and like, go anywhere in the world these days and
open your own place. Man, I'm sorry. Um, have you

(31:15):
seen Gero Dreams of Sushi. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's highly recommended.
I think that's streaming on Netflix too. Is um and
you recommended that, I think to me for the first time. Yeah,
we went and saw in the theaters. It was good. Yeah,
it was really good. I mean this it's about wanting sushi. Yeah,
and you don't have to like sushi. If you just
appreciate art and craftsmanship and being the best at something,

(31:37):
you should written that movie. And family too. It's cute
like it's it's the man and his two sons. I
think Giro has been making sushi for like seventy years
or something like that, and his two sons are following
in his footsteps. And it's really um uh intimate documentary
about that family totally. Uh So we talked a little

(31:57):
bit or I mentioned drinking a nice cold supporto. Um people,
I don't like sak myself. Um, I just don't dig
the rice wine. But that is a big thing for
a lot of people when they go out to eat sushi,
is to drink sake. But apparently because it is rice
basted and that your sushi is rice based, it doesn't
compliment one another. So you technically shouldn't be drinking sake

(32:20):
as you eat the sushi. I think it's a lot
like putting with sabi in the soy sauce. What like,
just do what you want. Yeah, well, all this stuff is,
of course, as long as you're not insulting the sushi
chef overtly yea and calling him things like sense and
stuff like that, really buttering them up. I think you're doing. Okay,
do people do that? I'm sure they do. I haven't yet,

(32:40):
but it's probably a good idea. All right. Um, they
recommend like green tea, light beer, even water, but again,
drink whatever you want. But if you're drinking sake, supposedly
you're not supposed to pour your own. You're supposed to
pour your buddies and then they pour yours. Yeah, and
this is if you're going, you know, if you want
to be traditional. Sure, but it makes saki for sharing

(33:02):
by definition, by that um one more a oh yeah yeah,
Like if you can't pour your own sake, you're up
the creek. If you're just drinking it by yourself, what
are you gonna ask like a stranger? Sure, make a buddy,
make a new friend on Japan now, all right, we're
gonna talk a little bit about how to make sushi

(33:23):
right after this message break. All right, so you've never
made sushi, I'm surprised you guys haven't tried it. I've
never made sushi. No, well I have, I haven't done

(33:45):
it in a while. But you can get your norri
sheets and grocery stores. I eat that stuff like a snack. Yeah,
of course. Uh, you can find your little crabsticks and cucumber.
And where it gets a little tricky is um is
the fish itself. Like, if you live in a big city,
there's probably a place where you can get sushi grade fish.
If you live out in the sticks, you might have

(34:06):
a harder time. Um, But you definitely want to get
sushi or sashimi grade fish. Um, and ask if it
is sashimi grade um. Like we said, no fresh water.
You don't want to trout roll No. And you want
it to be nice and vibrant color. Yeah. You don't
want there to be any weird like dark or soft spots, No,

(34:27):
that's rot. Yeah. The tuna should be like really bright
red um or pink yeah, like dark pink. Yeah. I
mean you can if you know how to spot it.
You know the difference like if you get a little practice. Yeah,
and if you're not like Emily and you're buying the
whole fish, you want the eyes to be like not
sunken in. You want them to be like still just
kind of popping out, like, oh my gosh, I'm I

(34:49):
can't believe this is happening kind of eyes, you know. Yeah,
it shouldn't smell too fishy either. If it smells super fishy,
that means it's probably not super fresh. But once you
have have your fish and you bought your nori, you
want to buy your rice. That's the first key ingredient
you need to master. And like we said, in Japan,
they spent two years learning how to make the rice properly.

(35:12):
So don't beat yourself up if it doesn't go well
at first. No, um, but the the the rice you're making,
you want to start with sushi rice, which is a
short or medium grain rice. And if you go to
the store to buy rice, like you go to a
um Asian food market or something like that, they're gonna
have rice that says sushi rice, and it's gonna come
out like like you want it. You're gonna be clumpy,

(35:34):
it's not gonna be like mushy. It's gonna be nice
and sticky white rice. Well, if you make it right right,
you can mess it up pretty bad. And I've learned, Um,
I use cal Rose. That's something here in the United States.
You can look for that stuff. Yeah, it's a real
popular I think that started in California. Um it's another
one when we eat all the time, is I think, um, oh,

(35:54):
it's like nishe I believe. Is that like the bread brand? Yeah,
cal Rose is a variety, so it may be a Calrow. Still, oh,
it's not a brand. I thought it was a brand.
Now that's a rice variety, medium rain, medium range, medium grain.
So the key here when you're making the rice, there's
a lot of keys, but the first big key is
you don't just throw it in the pot and cook it.

(36:16):
You have to rinse it. And what I do what
my friend John, you know, chef John he um, he
taught me to just put the rice, the dry uncooked
rice in a pot and start just a cold water,
like a slow cold water, um run and just let
it go like walk away, and the rice will kind

(36:38):
of stay at the bottom and the water will just
kind of overflow, but it'll that continuous water movement and
it's a little bit wasteful, you know, if you don't
like to leave your sink running or your water running.
But what you want to do is just rinse the
rice until the water is almost clear. Um, and you'll
see it. It's real, real cloudy and kind of grainy.
And as you keep washing it, it'll clear up. And

(37:00):
you want to do it with your hands and be
gentle with it. You don't want to mash it up.
Don't use a strainer because that can beat up the
rice pretty bad. Just treat it, treat it respectfully and
sort of wash it with your hands until the water
is clear. So that's step one. Then you got to
soak it for an additional half an hour in cold water.
Just walk away and leave it there. Then you're gonna

(37:20):
add uh half hours elapsed. Okay, we should just sit
here for half hour. Um. After the half hour has elapse,
you if you want, you can add a little sake
to it. If you want, you can add something called
dashi kanbu. It's a dried kelp. I've never done that,
but you can. It makes it pop, doesn't sure? Okay? Uh.

(37:40):
Then you're gonna cook you know, I mean they will
probably say on the package, but then you're gonna cook
it a lot like traditional rice. You boil it, cook
it on a medium heat with a pot on for
about fifteen minutes, then simmer for about twenty minutes over
low heat. And then they recommend here I've never heard
of this, to turn the heat up too high for
a few seconds at the end. I'm not sure what
that does. I think it maybe just like burns off

(38:03):
any excess moisture. That's what I would guess it does,
all right, And then leave the lid on and let
it sit for about fifteen minutes, completely off the heat
after that. All right, So now the vinegar, right, you
want to start with rice vinegar. That's the kind you
have to use. Is rice vinegar appropriately enough, and no

(38:23):
other don't think like, oh, can you use apple cider
vinegar or white vinegar. You could use sushi vinegar, which
is prepared rice vinegar, but it's gotta be rice vinegar, right,
But if you want to make it yourself, you use
a little rice vinegar um about a quarter cup to
a table spoon of sugar and one and a half
teaspoons of salt. Yeah, and that's for five cups of rice, right,

(38:44):
and you mix all that stuff up until the mixture
is clear and you've got yourself some homemade sushi vinegar.
Once you're um, your rice is is ready, you want
to turn it out into a bowl. Is what it's called.
You dump it out into a bowl. Yeah, And what
you should get is and you probably bought if you're

(39:05):
trying to make sushi, probably bought a couple of things
like your little bamboo rolling mat and a little wooden
paddle they call it. It's, you know, basically a big
flat spoon, and that is what you use to turn it,
um traditionally into a wooden bowl. You can use anything
but metal. Don't use metal, no, because it'll react with
the vinegar. Yeah, that's no good. You turn it out
with this sushi paddle or rice padal which, by the way,

(39:28):
you me and I have seen the world's largest rice paddle.
How big was it? It was big, bigger than me, uh,
like as big as this table. No, it was like
the size of like a long canoe. Oh, I said,
the world's biggest rice paddle. Well I didn't that, Like
I was trying to the flat part was it as
big as this table easily? Okay, in which for everybody

(39:49):
who's not in the room with us right now, the
table is probably about three across three in diameter. Well
did they use the thing? I don't see how you could.
Was just one of the silly things, like the world's
biggest batchel of it it was. It was far from silly,
but it was big. It was on Miajima, which is

(40:09):
a neat little island off of Hiroshima, and they have
the world's largest rice paddle on display. So you're gonna
use that rice paddle to pry the rice out of
the pot into your wooden bowl. Uh, and you know
it will come out kind of like a like a
cake almost before you, you know, start messing with it.
And then here's the thing. You don't just dump this

(40:30):
the vinegar that you've made all over the rice. You
want to pour it over the paddle and then spread
the paddle around over the rice so it sort of
gently falls and distributes evenly. And then you want to
fold it in and mix it together gently again, make
sure everything's coated pretty well, and then cool it down
to you're supposed to be fanning it while you're doing
this and then cool it down to room temperature and

(40:52):
then you're all set to go. And then you want
to take your hands and rinse them in vinegar to
prevent the rice from sticking, just kind of lightly. Yeah,
you should have the paddle as well. Um, when you're
spreading it, you you need to soak that as well.
Really it works well, right um. And then you're ready
to start making the geri sushi, which is the easiest

(41:13):
sushi to make. Um, it's just basically finger sushi. You
take a little lump of rice and just kind of
roll it into an oblong shape in your hand. Uh,
press down one side on one side with the finger,
and that's the side that's going to be the bottom.
So basically you're adding stability. Yeah, and you don't want
it super firm, um, but you don't want it falling

(41:35):
apart either, right uh. And then um, you take a
little bit of a save, smear it on the top,
and then top it with whatever ingredients you want, say tuna, yum.
And they have little molds by the way, if you
don't feel like you should try and make it in
the palm of your hand, but they do have little
prefab molds. That you spoon the rice into and like

(41:56):
you press a little thing on top and then pop
them out, which would make it basically oshi sushi that
Osaka style. Remember they have the press mold. Oh is
that what that is? Yeah, but there's a strictly like
a box. Yeah. Yeah, this is like eight little individual compartments. Yeah.
There's shaped like flowers and hearts and stuff like that too.
I haven't seen that. Oh yeah, oh yeah, mine's just rectangular.

(42:17):
But I don't use it. I did it first, and
then I was like, no, I'm gonna try in the
palm of the hand. Have you ever made a nigii
um sushi with like that? You were just like, this
is perfect? No, no, yeah, I guess it's just practice
ten years at least. Yeah. I mean it tastes fine,
and they even point out on this article it'll take
some practice before it looks as good as it tastes.
The taste will be there, but it's not what you're

(42:39):
seeing the restaurant properly. You know, those guys are prosy um.
That was Nigeri sushi. I just mentioned the little hand
hand rolled finger sized pieces and sushi. Yes, you can
also make maki, yeah, and that's when you take the
full that's a sushi roll. That's when you have the
full sheet. Uh, you want to spread about a third

(43:01):
of it with a thin coating of rice, and you
want the nori shiny side down onto the mat, the
bamboo mat. Yeah, And so you spread your rice. You
don't want it super thick, yeah, on top of the
north And you know this is a little bit of
h if it's your first time, there'll be some trial
and air involved, you know, Like I put way too
much rice at first, and then it was hard to

(43:22):
roll and it looked like this big burrito essentially, So
you're gonna want the rice a little thinner than you
think even And then you uh put it on the sheet.
It's on the mat, and you put your toppings across,
kind of like you're making a burrito, and then you
fold the bamboo mat over. You roll the nori into
the toppings. Um And this description feels a little convoluted.

(43:46):
You basically just want to roll it in the mat
and I give it a good squeeze at the end
to make sure it's all together and to let it
know it's loved exactly. And you want to I imagine
this is another thing that comes out with practice. You
said it first it looks like a burrito. Um, but
if you roll it, and I would guess your hands
need to be kind of away from the center so

(44:10):
that you're putting an equal amount of pressure around the roll,
and you're lightly rolling it, being careful not to let
the mat get rolled up into the sushi. Yeah, I've
done that, just rolling it over the top. But you're
rolling the role together. And then you got a low
roll squeezed at the end, as per chuck. And then
you take a really sharp knife right and cut it
in half. Then you cut that in half and so

(44:31):
on until you have eight pieces and my friend, you
have a moki sushi maki. Yeah, And like I said,
it's a little hard to describe. The best way to
do it is just to throw yourself in there and
try it. And if you've ever seen sushi rolls, then
your instinct will kind of tell you how to do
it and just mess around. It's fun. Like, don't put
pressure on yourself to don't plan a big sushi dinner

(44:52):
party on your first dry Yeah, that's probably a good idea,
you know, Just try it out yourself and then sorry,
what we just described was footo maki. If you wanted
to make an inside out roll like a California roll,
you would be making what's called uromaki. And basically you
follow the same steps but just reversed. You start with
the rice and then you put the nori. You start
with the bamboo mat, then put the rice on that,

(45:14):
then nori, then your toppings, and then you roll that up.
And did you say it was covered in plastic? Oh? Yeah,
you want to put the the bamboo has plastic on it,
and then the rice goes on the plastic like suran
wrap or something. Yeah. Basically you just take suran wrap
and and just cover both sides of your bamboo mat
with that. Uh. And then of course there's the one

(45:37):
of my favorite things to eat a sushi places is
the hand roll. Yeah, the tim aki. It's like a
nice cream cone of sushi. Yeah, and you can make those.
I've never had a lot of success with making those.
Um does seem like the easiest, aren't they not? For me?
I never got it to come out right. But you
make it in your hand. That's why it's called a
hand roll. You hold the nori and you spread the
ice on one end. Cover about a third of it,

(45:58):
and then you put your topping diagonally. You're gonna fold
your bottom corner up over the toppings and then roll
it in the same direction. And just picture a waffle
cone and that's what you're trying to emulate. And stick
some soft shell crab in that mug and chow down.
I want some sushi so bad? Do you like seft
shell crab? You ever had that? I don't think so.

(46:20):
I like crab. I mean that's when it's the whole
crab is just fried shell and all. Oh no, I've
not had that. Yeah, it's good. In fact, when I
was in d C, I went to uh a little
far that farmer's market at eight then I they'll tell
you about And they had this place that was someun
like crab cakes and soft shell crabs, which is so good?

(46:41):
Is it crab season now? I don't know it's crab
season that day for me. I got one more thing
from the book The Story of Sushi by Trevor Corson,
just some surprising sushi facts. I think most of these
we actually covered. Uh they said in Japan they eat
me so at the end of the meal to aid digestions.

(47:03):
They have an appetizer, the soup. Yeah, I've never knew that.
I like the miso soup though. Yeah, that's good stuff. Um.
And it says American chefs have probably never eaten a
proper nagiri because sushi chef's packet too tightly on purpose,
because Americans like it that way. Apparently it's a looser.
And have you ever did you experience that was a

(47:24):
looser in Japan? Um? I've had a looser here? Oh yeah,
like the nice places. I mean, you can you can
tell this by look. It's not you would never point
to it and be like, that's a dense lump of rice,
Like you can see like a few of the individual grain.
You can see the detail in the rice a little more.
You can find it here. Yeah. Uh. And his final

(47:45):
little fact, he said that the knives used by sushi
chefs are direct descendants of samurai swords A k A Katana.
Did not know that. I didn't know that either. There's
one more fact in there I thought was interesting. Of
all of the blue fin tuna caught in the world
is used for sushi, oh really yes? And the other
is grilled rare and not on a salad. I don't

(48:07):
know what they do with the other two million dollars
per man, that's a lot per pound. Yeah, was it that?
It had to have been the size of the fish
and the quality of that fish too, I would guess yeah, yeah,
because I mean, the guys at the Tokyo fish market
know what they're doing when it comes to fish, you know.
I would imagine they don't just look at some aged

(48:29):
rickety um tuna and say, like, how much do you
want for that? You know what I mean? Yeah, So
let's figure this out real quick, Chuck, are you dividing it? Yeah?
So one point eight million dollars, yeah, divided by four
ninety pounds. Is that what you said? I remember, that's
three thousands, six hundred and seventy three dollars and rounding

(48:52):
up forty seven cents a pound, that must have been
one special tuna. Yeah. Man, at the very least, he
felt Ussel when they're crazy cut him up. I got
nothing else. Well, we could probably sit here for five
six hours and talk about this, but we're not going to. Instead,
if you want to learn more about sushi, you can
type that into the search bar at how stuff works

(49:13):
dot com. And I said, search parts means it's time
for listener mail. I'm gonna call this amputation feedback. Hey, guys,
I was interested in how amputation works and I thought
i'd share an offshoot topic and one of my classes
we studied a procedure called rotation plasty, which is an
infrequent operation occurs when only part of the limb requires amputation,

(49:33):
like a bone tumor in the lower part of the
femur or upper fibia tibia excuse me. Traditionally it's done
on lower extremities, although a few upper extremity cases exist.
The operation consists of removing a portion of the leg,
ranging anywhere along the femur into the tibia fibular region,
ultimately removing the knee. Uh. The ankle joint is still functional,
so the surgeon removes all the muscle and bone, keeping

(49:55):
the nerves that connect the two regions intact. The foot
and ankle are then turned around face backwards and reattached
along the femur. I feel like we talked about that.
I do too. Yeah, it may not have been in
that one, or maybe maybe it was. But the reason
the foots place backwards is because it didn't have the
stability for it to be it adds more stability. Now,
is that what it is? Yeah, she said, the ankle

(50:18):
becomes the new knee joint and results in a high
range of movement, which helps many patients continue active lifestyles. Yeah,
we definitely talked about that. Well, this isn't news to
us then. Uh. The end result is it looks really
strange but gives a huge opportunity for the patient at
least check out some of the crazy images. So Kelly
Kravitz of the Colorado School of Minds go forty nine

(50:42):
or apparently we we discussed that, but at any rate,
it's still interesting. Yeah, thanks a lot, Kelly, Yeah, Kelly,
thanks Kelly. If you want to describe in greater details
something we mentioned briefly, we are always happy for that
kind of thing. Indeed, you can tweet to us at
s Y s K podcast, so you can join us
on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You

(51:03):
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