Charlotte Chia-Ying Lee
HUMN 309 Cross Cultural Design
Maxe Fisher
March 25, 2013
Sushi Migration: a look on the migration
and evolution of sushi in interbreeding cultures
Abstract
Sushi, a popular Japanese cuisine over
the world, is a result of food migration, and it is still evolving itself
within Japanese culture. However, the more profound fact is its evolution
outside of Japan, such as in North American. The myth (a type of speech according to Roland Bathers) of sushi not only explains the influences of
globalization on Japanese cuisine, but the migration of sushi also suggests its
easy-adoptability and ever-evolving nature. To serve as a support of Marshall
McLuhan’s theory, this research will focus on three aspects. Starting with digging
in to the history of sushi, of its traces back to the fourth century in
China and then was adopted
by the Japanese during the ninth century, and also includes its
evolvement in North America in the 1900s. Second, the migration of such a food has been highly affected
by globalization. I will explain further by using examples of fish trade
(Bluefin tuna) and co-operated fisheries between the
Japanese and the Europeans in recent years, and how this phenomenon
ties to the evolvement of sushi in Japan. Third, compare the ingredients and
rituals in sushi. With all these, we will have a clear understanding that Japanese sushi
is itself a product of food migration, and enable us to foresee the possible
future of unified food culture.
Introduction: Sushi
Migration
What make sushi “sushi”? This is a
question reappearing through out my research. The word “sushi” itself is a
Japanese word, and this kind of food is also originated from Japan. However,
the sushi we know – or to clarify the focus group: the sushi North Americans
know, which we assume and strongly believe to be purely Japanese – is actually
not so Japanese at all. A few days a go I chatted with a Japanese friend, Yumi,
and shockingly realized that what I believed to be Japanese sushi did not exist
in Japan. If people (here I mean non-Japanese) go to sushi restaurants (for
example the Togo Sushi in Vancouver) expecting to have authentic sushi, for
most of the cases, they choose the wrong place. I will provide further details
when comparing sushi menus in the later chapter. The problem is, if people go
to sushi restaurants and not having the authentic sushi, can we call those
“sushi” restaurants? Let’s come back to the question: what make sushi “sushi”?
Is it the origin (Japan), the materials, or the eating gesture that make it
“sushi”? Surprisingly, from my research, none of them can provide a
specifically and absolutely explanation on this matter. I believed that what
make sushi “sushi” today is a process of complicated food migration. This sushi
migration is still evolving in the world, but we can already see its sprout of
food unity.
History of Sushi and its
Origin
Before going further to my
explanation of unified food culture, we will first dig into the history of
sushi from the beginning of its migration.
Tori Avey, the author of
The History Kitchen column on PBS Food, wrote a clear historical background on
sushi in her article “Discover the History of Sushi”. To my surprise, sushi
actually originated from China: “A fourth century Chinese dictionary mentions
salted fish being placed in cooked rice, causing it to undergo a fermentation
process. This may be the first time the concept of sushi appeared in print
(Avey).” This quote not only states the beginning of sushi (though it is
nothing like the sushi of the present time), it also hints the later evolution
of this cuisine. The more surprising thing comes next: “The concept of sushi
was likely introduced to Japan in the ninth century, and became popular there
as Buddhism spread (Avey)” in order to fulfill Buddhist dietary needs. However, Avey’s article only provides a selective
and limited historical background; whereas Lynne Olver, a reference librarian with a passion on food
history, validated Avey’s point with greater details in her website (the Food
Timeline). Starting with a single-page website, the Food Timeline has grown to
more than fifty pages since 1999. Most of the contents were quotes from
different books on the same topic. Olver organized the pieces of information in
an understandable fashion with short explanations to guide viewers into the
texts. Sushi is categorized under Asian-American cuisine, which the title
itself suggests the idea of culture migration already. If Avey identifies the
food migration from China to Japan, Olver provides more information in relation
to the fast food culture of recent centuries. According to Olver’s selections of
quotes, thirteen hundreds years ago, preparing sushi can takes from two months
to more than a year, and it is not until the seventeenth century that Japanese
starts to add vinegar to sushi rice in order to mimic the tartness in a reduced
amount of time. “By 1824 a man named Hanaya Yohei conceived the idea of sliced,
raw seafood at its freshest, served on small fingers of vinegared rice.” This
means that before sushi comes to our understanding of “sushi”, it has already
experienced the slow evolution within Japan. Starting as salted fish on rice in
China, sushi has finally been adopted as a new type of popular cuisine in Japan
(especially in Edo) in the nineteenth century. Even though the Chinese food
culture and Buddhism push forward the invention of sushi, it is clear that
sushi is a Japanese food rather than a Chinese food or Indian food. However, it
is still important to note that sushi is a product of cross culture influence
even before it travels to the West. What makes the definition of sushi even
more complicated is that history does not stop here.
Western influences break into
Japan during World War II. In his book, the
Search for Sushi, Carl Chu, who is a Taiwanese-American writer, provides a
general idea on this matter. He states that the war not only causes the
shortage of Japanese food supplies, the fear of the outbreak of cholera in bombed-out
cities even changes the eating behavior of the Japanese: the shortage of food
supplies reduces the making of Oshizushi, which requires more rice to make; as
the result of the fear, street stalls (something similar to a sushi vender)
disappeared in Tokyo, and from then, sushi was only served indoor. Sushi is
also the first Japanese food introduced to Postwar America (Chu 10). However,
there is difficulty for the Americans to accept raw fish.
“To make sushi similarly
palatable, chefs used cooked ingredients like crab and shrimp, and familiar
vegetables like avocados and cucumbers. These were, coincidentally, some of the
same ingredients in the California Roll, which was invented several decades
later (Chu 11).”
I do not consider this as a coincidence, but rather the adoption
of foreign cuisine. What I want to argue here is the disappearing of origin. The
same as the Japanese adopting Chinese salted fish on rice many centuries ago;
the Americans adopt sushi into their culture in a similar fashion. By using
local ingredients to fit the taste of the local people, California Roll and
Alaska Roll are successful examples in this on-going evolution of sushi. This
alternation of ingredients continues the process of sushi evolution. More
interestingly, this evolution also happened in Canada, but in an opposite direction.
Rumiko Tachibana has done a thorough
research on the migration of sushi in North America in her thesis. When the
first Japanese immigrants came to Canada during the early twentieth century, they remained
eating pure Japanese style meals (Tachibana 53). However, the lack of materials
after World War II forced them to incorporate Western food into their diet
(Tachibana 54). If the migration arrow points from East to West in the America,
the arrow in Canada points in an opposite direction: from West to East. The
adaptation speed of sushi of the Americans, though, seems to be faster than the
Japanese acceptance of Western cuisine. According to Tachibana, the popularity
of sushi spread northward from Los Angeles to Vancouver. Denotatively, it is a
spread of popularity of Japanese food; connotatively, it is a spread of westernized
sushi. This is exactly what I mean in the introduction. What we call “sushi” in
North America, it no longer carries the full identity of authentic Japan. Coming
from Japan does not mean it is Japanese; just as originating in China does not
mean it is Chinese. Therefore, the origin alone does not make sushi “sushi”.
Materials used in Sushi
Talking about the westernized
sushi, there is no reason to skip the ingredients used in sushi making. In this
chapter, I will explain more on the false assumption on what is Japanese (and
what is not) and compare different sushi menus for its materiality. From my Japanese friend Yumi and Trevor Corson, the
author of The Zen of Fish: the story of
sushi, from samurai to supermarket, I learned that Japanese makes sushi
only with seafood and limited vegetables. Sushi for them is to taste the
original flavor of different seafood such as squid, clam, salmon, and tuna,
especially for nigiri sushi. Each kind will be consumed according to the seasonality,
“which a species is at its fleshiest (Nagayama, Yoda, and Tajima 14).” In
Vancouver, people do not care if the salmon or tuna is in season; whereas in
Japan, there is a tradition and ritual on sushi-eating practices – I will
extend my argument on eating gesture later.
Walter F. Carroll is a professor of
sociology at Bridgewater State College. In the bibliography of his research
paper, Carroll based his research on sushi, which he claims, “originated” from
Japan, to analyze globalization through food culture. The most interesting part
in his bibliography, though, is the quote he used from Bestor, which the
Bestors “discover[ed]
– to [their]
surprise – that some of the fresh seafood before [their] eyes was from the United States, Canada,
or Southeast Asia (Carroll 452).” Since I have discussed the history of origin,
I shift my focus to the ingredients and further my research through Theodore C.
Bestor, a professor of anthropology and Japanese Studies at Harvard University
who has written
widely on the culture
and society of Japan. In his article, “How Sushi went Global,” Bestor tied the
global fish trade of Bluefin tuna with the migration of sushi. Sushi, for sure,
is one of the most recognizable cultural motifs of Japan. Tuna sashimi has become
popular because it was seen as healthy and fresh, and the red tuna meat on
white rice is like the symbol of the Japanese flag, which clearly defines its identity. However, this
is where the false assumption comes into mind. It is important to note that
Japan has no local tuna resource. Each year, the Japanese industry spends lots of money on
importing tuna. They even cooperate with Europeans by hiring their workers and
using their ocean resources to cultivate tunas. Though with this
fact, tuna is still symbolically tied with Japanese
culture but not Europe or anywhere else where all the fish coming from. If the
sushi that considered “authentic” is already a cross-cultural product, the
westernized sushi adds
another level of complexity on materiality.
A very common problem for
Vancouverners when eating sushi is that they may not be able to distinguishing
the westernized sushi from authentic sushi. Yumi, my Japanese friend, finds me a sushi menu in Japan, which she
considered the most authentic, which Kanda-Edogin is the one. Then there is
also Togo Sushi in Vancouver, which comparing with Kanda-Edogin is more like a
fast food restaurant. Since ingredients of nigiri sushi are varied from place
to place, depending on the local taste and availability of resources, I will
focus the comparison within maki rolls. Kanda-Edogin only has ten choices for
maki sushi: kappa (cucumber), kampiyou (marinated groud strips), natto
(fermented soy beans), oshinko (pickies radish), tekka (tuna), toro (fatty
tuna), ume-kyu (plum paste and cucumber), ume-shiso (plum paste and perilla
leaf), Futo maki (shrimp, egg, shiitake mushroom, kampiyou, and cucumber), and
Tokyo maki (shrimp, egg, cucumber with mayounerse sauce). From the list, it is
clear that the ingredients are very limited in traditional maki. On the other
hand, Togo Sushi has a wide range of thirty-four choices in maki alone. The
ingredients contain avocado, cooked meat, tempura, and even fruit (mango).
According to Yumi, Japanese does not put tempura, teriyaki, or unagi (and some
of them with lettuce) in sushi; they should be topped on a bowl of cooked rice,
and of course never lettuce. By this, I am not opposing the quality of Togo
Sushi. In fact, I love their unagi roll even though it is nothing like a traditional
Japanese maki. The differences of ingredients used prove that sushi has been
successfully adopted in North American culture. Vinegared rice and nori are
probably the only reason that we still call it sushi, but this is no longer the
case in Figure I.
Figure
I: Blueberry sushi with honey chili.
Figure I, Blueberry sushi with honey chili, is a
maki recipe from The Complete Book of
Sushi written by Hideo Dekura, Brigid Treloar, and Ryuichi Yoshii. Except sushi rice, no other ingredients
can relate this sushi to Japanese culture; plus Japan is not the only
rice-eating country anyway. After the astonishment of looking at this image, it
is impossible not ask the question again: what make sushi “sushi”? If this
blueberry sushi is considered “sushi”, despite its authenticity, sushi becomes
a form of small bites – similar to any other kinds of finger foods such as
tapas, mezze, or antipasti. I do not think authentic sushi will disappear
within food culture, but it will, and is still, co-exist with the evolution of
its kind. If so, the ingredients do not
make sushi “sushi” either.
Rituals in Sushi
What I mean by ritual includes the tradition and
eating gesture. In this chapter, I will compare the traditional way of eating
sushi with the fast food sushi in North America. According to Corson, who I
mentioned earlier, not only the North Americans but also some of the Japanese
themselves might not know the most authentic way of eating sushi. I am not
saying there is no authentic sushi in North America. What I want to focus on is
the influence of fast food culture shown through the sushi-eating behavior
especially in Vancouver. After an immigrated to Canada in the year of 2007, I
discover that it is a very common thing to have sushi as your lunch or dinner.
Being an Asian, sushi never equals to a formal meal, and only appears either on
street stalls (Taiwanese style) or higher class restaurants (authentic Japanese
style). In Vancouver, sushi is consumed as if it is a sandwich or hamburger,
though considerably healthier. Last chapter I have already discussed the
differences between the ingredients of authentic sushi and westernized sushi.
But beside the materiality, Vancouverners seem to not knowing the authentic way
of eating sushi. Sushi in Vancouver is consumed simply as one of the fast food
product; as if there is no need to bother of learning the ritual it carries,
which as a result, makes many mistakes. For example, soy sauce is usually added
while making the sushi and it is not necessary to dip it again; many people
will mix wasabi with soy sauce to increase the pungency but is actually
reducing it; Gari is not a side dish but to cleanse the remaining flavor on the
tongue (Corson 331-332). Even though not everyone knows these, sushi is still sushi.
It does not change its identity according the different eating behavior. Hence,
the making of “sushi” does not rely on the way it is consumed.
Conclusion
Remembering back to the
history of sushi, Japanese adopts salted fish on rice from China by evolving it
into a new type of cuisine: sushi. In the
similar fashion, North American adopts sushi by turning it into a fast food
culture. If the origin, the ingredients, and the eating
behavior no longer explain the identity of sushi, sushi becomes a product of
globalization. Therefore I argued that the sushi
evolution is on its midway through food unity – note that it is a unity with variation because the
authentic sushi has not die.
Work
Cited
Avey, Tori. “Discover the
History of Sushi.” The History Kitchen.
PBS Food, 5 Sept. 2012. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.
Bestor, Theodore. “How Sushi Went
Global.” Foreign Policy. November/December. 2000: 54-63. Print.
Carroll, Walter. “Sushi:
Globalization through Food Culture: Towards a Study of Global Food Network.”
Kansai University Institutional Repository, 31 Mar. 2009. Web. 26 Feb. 2013. <
http://www.icis.kansai-u.ac.jp/data/journal02-v1/31_Carroll.pdf >
Carson, Trevor. The Zen of Fish: the story of
sushi, from samurai to supermarket. Taipei: Owl Publishing, 2008. Print.
Chu, Carl. The Search for Sushi: a Gastronomic Guide.
Manhattan Beach: Crossbridge Publishing Co, 2006. Print.
Dekura, Hideo, Brigid Treloar, and Ryuichi Yoshii. The Complete Book of Sushi. Sydney:
Lansdowne Publishing Pty Ltd., 2000. Print.
Kanda-Edogin. Web. 24
Mar. 2013. <http://www.kanda-edogin.com/top-page-e.htm>
Ngayama, Kazuo, Hiroshi Yoda, and Kasuhiko Tajima. Sushi. Tokyo: PIE International, 2011.
Print.
Olver,
Lynne. “History notes – Asian American cuisine.” Food Timeline: food history research service. Personal Website,
Lynne Olver, 2 Feb. 2013. Web. 27 Feb. 2013.
Tachibana, Rumiko.
“’Processing’ Sushi / Cooked Japan: Why Sushi Became Canadian.” University of
Victoria, 30 Dec. 2008. Web. 27 Feb. 2013.
Togo Sushi: Japanese
sushi restaurant. Web. 24 Mar. 2013. <http://www.togosushi.ca/>
