Term · Japanese culture
Sushi
The word means sour, and it refers to the rice, which is the opposite of what almost every menu outside Japan implies.
In Otakana the clue reads: Vinegared rice served with raw fish
- Type
- Term
- Series
- Japanese culture
- Letters
- 5 · Easy
It started as preservation. Fish was packed in salt and rice and left to ferment for months, the rice going sour and then being thrown away, the fish keeping through winter. Edo cooks in the nineteenth century shortened the process by putting vinegar in the rice directly, then serving it fresh with a slice of fish pressed on top. That was fast food, sold from carts to people standing up.
The vinegared rice remains the definition. Nigiri is a hand-pressed finger of it, maki is rolled in seaweed, chirashi is a bowl scattered with toppings, and inari is stuffed into sweet fried tofu with no fish anywhere near it. A good shop is judged on the rice temperature and the seasoning long before anyone talks about the fish.
Conveyor belt shops appeared in Osaka in 1958 and turned a luxury into a family meal, and colour-coded plates still price the meal by the pile at your elbow. The California roll worked outward from North America in the other direction, and its rice on the outside is a workaround for diners who did not want to see the seaweed.
Spelling SUSHI
SUSHI is five letters with two Ss, at the first and third positions, and no other repeat. SH is a single sound, shi, so nothing doubles across it. In compounds the S softens to Z, which is why the rolls are makizushi and the boxed kind is oshizushi, but the tiles want the plain form. Both vowels are U then I.