A horse’s ass is better than yours! - Cibo Matto, “Beef Jerky.”
The idea of deer sushi sounds like a Cibo Matto song from the late 1990′s. There is something so odd, so surreal about Japanese sushi chefs incorporating horse and deer into their sushi that it might as well be served by a Japanese art rock song along with some Sci-Fi wasabi. However, in the New York Times this morning, sushi chefs in Japan are grappling with featuring deer and horse meat, among other non-traditional sushi ingredients, due to worldwide limits on fishing tuna. While tuna is not the only seafood used in sushi, it is one of the most popular.
The limited availability of tuna challenges the definition of sushi in Japan. While sushi may go back several centuries, the popular delicacy only dates back to the 19th century. The vinegared rice was originally created as a preservative for fish (and not eaten), but making rice balls, or nigiri, together with fish is more of a recent development.
Sushi has become such as definitive part of Japanese culture and cuisine that changing it seems unthinkable. However, given the history of sushi, it has evolved over the centuries and was even changed by innovation in the 19th century. There’s no reason to think that it can’t adapt now.
Enjoy this humorous video on Sushi etiquette by the Rahmens*, a Japanese comedy troupe:
*official site in Japanese. Hopefully, some info can be gleaned here in English.
Links:
- NY Times, Waiter, There’s A Deer In My Sushi.
- A History of Sushi.
- Asian Artmall’s Sushi History.
Tags: adventurous cuisine, Cibo Matto, Japan, New York Times, Rahmens, sushi, YouTube
That … was one of the funniest things I have seen in a long, long time. I love it!
Funny video. Reminds me how funny americans are when they try to act japanese.
Thankfully I don’t speak japanese so I don’t know what they were saying as they were laughing. I just assumed they had just seen a Rich Little performance.
I completely enjoyed my time in Japan and Okinawa while never eating sushi. Domo!
@Chris: My favorite part is about why Japanese people’s feet smell like vinegar (which isn’t true, BTW. Not that I’ve been smelling Japanese feet to verify that).
@Murphy – You hit upon the henna gaijin, those amusing foreigners who try to act Japanese.
The concept makes me think of the sushi stand in the mall I work at. I went there one day to get cucumber and avocado rolls, and noticed they also offered chicken teriyaki (sp?) rolls. I got both, and was pleased with how tasty they were; I didn’t think chicken and seaweed would go well together, but they did.
In Hawaii, they like to roll Spam and rice up in nori (the same kind of seaweed paper for sushi) and it’s musubi. Out here in San Diego, some Hawaiian style diners will make the musubi with teriyaki chicken instead of Spam.
Yes, I mentioned Spam, which is enough to horrify any WASPy types. And it tastes GOOOOD (done with a Margaret Cho tone reserved for impersonating her mother).