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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, Let's let's talk about fish in a second. Let's take a message break first. Okay, so we're talking about fish. 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, 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 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 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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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, 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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. 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, 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, 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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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. 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? 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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