yes that is cream cheese this is what you get if you order sushi in America but this is what you
get if you order sushi in Japan if you have like a Dragon Roll or a rainbow roll oh no
so are we doing it all wrong did they glamor I'd like putting mayonnaise I'm eating sushi
in America then going to Japan to understand just how they eat sushi there the Japanese traditional
sushi is more about the authenticity and just like the simple texture is everything getting
Lost in Translation Sushi it's very different from Japan and us is it sushi I'm not sure did America
modify Sushi to maximize profits and bring Sushi to the masses or is this because the US government
has much stricter laws related to the handling of raw fish this is it this is what a standard
sushi lunch will look like here in Japan sushi is our traditional culture I'm going to a 5 a.m
fish market in Tokyo meeting Sushi chefs and even taking classes to try to learn did America
innovate Sushi or totally ruin it walk into many grocery stores across the U.S and you will see
this avocado rolls Philadelphia rolls Eden La rolls and head to a sushi restaurant order from
a menu you might even see more offerings Hawaiian roll lady in red rule even Superman burrito roll
but I order one of the most common here in America Philadelphia roll and yes that is cream cheese it
sort of comes apart as I'm eating it and I ordered this this one seems to kind of have some bones in
it this one roll cost me 16 but hey I'm not complaining this is actually a very standard
sushi restaurant experience here in the US the menu at this restaurant is primarily sushi rolls
and they also offer a lot of other things like rice and noodle based dishes but what happens
is if I head to Japan outside this restaurant in Tokyo here is what they advertise for lunch
specials for meals all you see is fish salmon tuna fish fish eggs and then when it comes to
the other types of sushi so obviously that's a lot of Sashimi on rice here you have nigiri everything
you see here is so simple fish some rice and maybe some seaweed and that's about it it's common that
they'll add a little bit of Wasabi in each piece it's not like Wasabi is put on the side but they
do give you an option do you want it or do you want it without that's pretty much the standard
Sushi of Japan that's just this is what it looks like it's nigiri it's a piece of fish rice there's
a few different types of sushi nigiri is the most basic One Fish and Rice rolls are very common in
the U.S they're less common but they're still prevalent here in Japan so when you go to the
rolls you see they're all very very simple it's literally like one thing rice wrapped in seaweed
tuna roll salmon roll nothing is really added to them it's hard to explain how fresh that is but
also not just the fish the rice there's something about the rice just it's incredible like they're
not really familiar with rice e-cigarettes at that I did ask for California roll he showed it to me
on this menu but it's not popular enough where I actually even see it here on the tablet hold on to
understand Sushi's popularity in America you have to look at the California roll this was adapted
to suit the American taste preferences decades ago because raw fish sounded gross to Americans
so enter the California roll it would consist of avocado cucumber and crab meat wrapped in seaweed
and rice crab meat to avoid raw fish it's the California roll that accelerated the growth of
sushi in the U.S but more on that later and who knows maybe they added California roll for the
tourists I need to meet with a Japanese chef and figure out what's going on here when I make sushi
I use this Sushi board and let's make sushi with customers I meet this sushi chef who is moving
to the U.S with a dream of educating people to make authentic Sushi you can make sushi you have
confidence to see if the pimple cooking pimple style he wants people to think of making sushi
as simple as well using an iPhone every people can make sushi every day by low style it's very
easy and eat sushi and they become healthy later he shows me his knives he uses to make sushi it's
very traditional Japanese town called this salt Sushi salt my master of sushi use this model so
why is sushi so much different in Japan than the US here are three main reasons number one
and this is kind of ironic is that sushi in Japan is much much more simple than America so clearly
America's modifications are not a result of laziness in Japan it's very simple Rice and
a piece of fish or piece of egg and also in the US it's like rolling the first reason has to be
profits in the U.S capitalism drives everything this is expensive right I mean if you wanted to
provide this much fish this much raw salmon for a lunch meal in the US it would cost a lot of money
it's much easier to fill it with rice and make it cheaper look at this piece it's pretty small but
the fish is massive the majority of well-default sushi in Japan happens to be nigiri it's a small
amount of rice with a sizable piece of fish it's simple while in the U.S rolls tend to be more
popular which allow for more Innovation creativity and well fillings inside but even the rolls here
look different this is what a roll will look like in Japan notice very simple very small and even
the seaweed here is Fresh So America took Sushi and invented the California roll usually imitation
crab avocado and cucumber but what happens when a restaurant in Japan takes that same thing but
makes its own version the California roll tastes so different in a weird way it tastes way better
because it's Super Fresh the ingredients cucumber the rice there's a little shrimp on the top but
it's nowhere near as good as actually the other sushi that I've been eating here people in Japan
have a mixed opinion on America's Innovation I think it's a good way to display food and bring
that appetite to people it's also most of like photogenic too right I don't mind it the second
reason Sushi is so different in America comes down to government regulations see in Japan
sushi revolves around using the most fresh high quality fish people wake up early to bid on the
best one fish used for sushi is often caught locally and brought to restaurants the same
day and that allows for an insane level of freshness that freshness is highly valued in
Japanese Cuisine while Japan has strict guidelines for fishing processing and transportation there is
no legal requirement in Japan to freeze fish before serving it as sushi but that's exactly
the case in the United States see the U.S Food and Drug Administration established regulation saying
You must freeze fish that is intended for raw consumption by freezing fish you can effectively
destroy any potential parasites this requirement in the U.S and Insurance food safety standards
are met and allows sushi restaurants to serve raw fish with confidence but of course it does affect
the texture and taste of the fish I mean frozen fish can never taste as good as something that
came from the ocean that morning and the third reason that Sushi differs so much might just
come down to well cultural preferences traditional sushi focuses on natural flavors of the fish using
minimal ingredients to complement the tastes like soy sauce Wasabi and vinegar rice but sushi in the
United States has evolved to cater to other tastes and that often includes cream cheese mayonnaise
and the Art of well deep frying The Fish and Rice but to understand how serious they take this fresh
fish I wake up at 5am and head to a tuna auction Uber in Japan is so expensive and the train system
is so amazing but at 4am I'm treating myself I love these milk teas and what's really crazy
is that even though it's in a vending machine and even though it's plastic it's served pot
it's 5 30 in the morning which means the auction is starting they chop off the end of the fish and
then they put it on top of the fish so that buyers can actually see the quality and the freshness
to assess the quality of the tuna I'm seeing all types of things flashlights close-up inspections
and a lot of buyers have clipboards and it's really interesting you have to wonder like how do
you become an expert in knowing what to look for is it the smell is it the color I mean there's a
lot that's going into this right now so you have the auctioneer here and then they're using hand
gestures to actually bid on each tuna then the second they put the yellow slip that restaurant
that tuna has been purchased it's been claimed and then it's off to the restaurant all right I'm
definitely coming here for breakfast these are the restaurants they get fresh fish from overnight and
then serve it immediately I mean you already have a restaurant that's open so I asked her what just
came from this morning she says everything but she said especially the tuna and the salmon and
the shrimp she talked a lot about the shrimp it's really cool to see them make it right in front of
you so let's dive in at 6am it's insane just like the color and the freshness it's also insane that
I'm having sushi at 6am taste is incredible and it's really interesting because it's kind of
like room temperature usually you eat fish and it feels cold but this is actually room temperature
the rice is not warm but again room temperature so did sushi in America evolve over time or did
it enter America already modified well let's head back to the 1960s when Americans began venturing
abroad Sushi faced a challenge As Americans were not used to raw fish let alone seaweed wrapped
rice rolls Japan experienced a surge of economic growth and cultural influence businesses diplomats
and students were moving to cities like LA and San Francisco and a man named noritoshi andai opened
the first sushi restaurant in 1966. by the 1980s Sushi became trendy slowly becoming mainstream
all over over the country sushi restaurants were popping up and to cater to new preferences and
mass-produced Sushi especially in a place where fresh fish was not readily available like Japan
well anything was bound to happen and that might explain why you now have so many creative roles
but now that I understand what authentic Sushi is I'm curious what does it take to actually make it
so in today's class I'm Gonna Learn nigiri and Maki and Inari so far I see a lot of just raw
ingredients and it seems simple enough but let's see if it's actually simple I meet Kiko a Japanese
sushi chef who hosts me for a cooking class she just told me how she prepares the Japanese rice
you wash two cups of rice about half an hour before cooking then you add sake into the rice
so at the base of a theory is literally this the rice and then this the fish the shrimp and the
fish few minutes and I think I'm somewhat getting the hang of it wasabi I'm gonna take some rice and
again she told me just a little rice to give it a little squeeze into a ball so now that my rice is
sticking to itself I'm gonna stick it on the fish and I'm going to do with my two fingers
tight I thought she was gonna say it's time to eat and she actually said no please arrange them
neatly so this isn't just about eating it's about actually experiencing I mean food is art really in
this case so it's all about you know presentation as well with any cuisine the shocking thing for
me was that this is literally so simple Rice Wasabi fish that's it if I'm being honest after
a month in Japan it's now become quite hard for me to eat sushi back in America Japan ruined it
for me but maybe it's not fair for me to say it's been ruined I also respect the kind of
organization or you know mixing the like you know the Western water local Essence into the authentic
one so which is kind of chemistry I recommend maybe everyone's to explore the you know each
local sushi I was not expecting that Dragon Roll rainbow roll completely had no idea what I was
saying but California roll he actually has it's not very common but they added it to the menu look
at that Japan influencing California California bringing it back wow many Japanese don't bash the
American version of sushi the way Italians might bash pineapple on pizza or Mexicans might bash
Taco Bell but maybe they're also just being polite I'm making people like having home party and
Japanese people I like homebody so I want sushi like iPhone if my tree it's our team dream I came
across a lot of kind of like sushi restaurants I prefer the Japanese authentic one [Music]