![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Sushi, vegetarianism and Japan
Ask a westerner what sushi is and the'll probably answer "raw fish," and possibly add something about it being wrapped in seaweed. Also wasabi. In fact, a friend said that he knows of people who consider sushi only salmon, which is just so far out there, even in the western world. Where have you eaten sushi?
The truth is, sushi is so much more than that, at least in Japan. If you're talking raw fish, you're talking about something called sashimi 刺身. Which, when putting it on rice or wrapping it in seaweed with rice, becomes sushi.
Considering Japan is the land of soy, soy milk, tofu, sweet bean paste etc. etc., you'd think it might be reasonably easy to be a vegetarian. I didn't really know what to expect, but I have discovered that this is really not the case. Before I arrived in Japan, I was the talk of the school because I'd answered in the forms that I'm a vegetarian. This is something rare and shocking and amazing in Japan, it seems. Not to mention that say you're a vegetarian and they think you eat fish because fish isn't meat I guess.
I ask for food with no meat or fish rather than say I'm vegetarian at restaurants because it's simply the quickest way. And when I do that, they're always taken aback. At least in Sweden, more and more people are becoming vegetarian and it's not strange at all anymore. I mean, an all vegetarian restaurant even opened in Liseberg and it was very crowded. Here, it makes me even more of an alien.
"Sou desu neee..." they say - a polite way to say "uhhhh" (or "let me think," if you like) in Japanese - scratching their chin and thinking hard while they flip through the menu.
As a vegetarian anywhere, though, you don't really tend to expect there to be more than, say, a sallad for you, if anything at all. When my school was arranging a Christmas party and said they'd offer a small lunch (pizza), I prepared myself for having to arrange my own. One of the teachers surprised me by coming up and asking what I eat. "No meat, no fish. Do you eat egg?" And they made sure there was vegetarian pizza for me. I was very touched.
Now you probably wouldn't expect this - I sure didn't - but it turns out that so far the food with the most options for me have been sushi. Because it is, in fact, not raw fish. It's fish and meat and soy beans (fermented called natto 納豆 and I don't like them, alas) and egg and soy sauce and nori (the seaweed you wrap the rice and stuff in) and cucumber and corn and mayonnaise (Japan loves mayonnaise) and wasabi and another kind of seaweed that you put in the wraps and not the wrapping and which's name I forgot. Oh, and the rice of course. Also meatballs??? Don't ask me.
The world of sushi is vast and while there would be far more options for me if I weren't a vegetarian, there are easily at least three options and it's not just salads that won't actually fill me up. I can actually last for a few hours on what it offers.
Bless sushi.
The truth is, sushi is so much more than that, at least in Japan. If you're talking raw fish, you're talking about something called sashimi 刺身. Which, when putting it on rice or wrapping it in seaweed with rice, becomes sushi.
Considering Japan is the land of soy, soy milk, tofu, sweet bean paste etc. etc., you'd think it might be reasonably easy to be a vegetarian. I didn't really know what to expect, but I have discovered that this is really not the case. Before I arrived in Japan, I was the talk of the school because I'd answered in the forms that I'm a vegetarian. This is something rare and shocking and amazing in Japan, it seems. Not to mention that say you're a vegetarian and they think you eat fish because fish isn't meat I guess.
I ask for food with no meat or fish rather than say I'm vegetarian at restaurants because it's simply the quickest way. And when I do that, they're always taken aback. At least in Sweden, more and more people are becoming vegetarian and it's not strange at all anymore. I mean, an all vegetarian restaurant even opened in Liseberg and it was very crowded. Here, it makes me even more of an alien.
"Sou desu neee..." they say - a polite way to say "uhhhh" (or "let me think," if you like) in Japanese - scratching their chin and thinking hard while they flip through the menu.
As a vegetarian anywhere, though, you don't really tend to expect there to be more than, say, a sallad for you, if anything at all. When my school was arranging a Christmas party and said they'd offer a small lunch (pizza), I prepared myself for having to arrange my own. One of the teachers surprised me by coming up and asking what I eat. "No meat, no fish. Do you eat egg?" And they made sure there was vegetarian pizza for me. I was very touched.
Now you probably wouldn't expect this - I sure didn't - but it turns out that so far the food with the most options for me have been sushi. Because it is, in fact, not raw fish. It's fish and meat and soy beans (fermented called natto 納豆 and I don't like them, alas) and egg and soy sauce and nori (the seaweed you wrap the rice and stuff in) and cucumber and corn and mayonnaise (Japan loves mayonnaise) and wasabi and another kind of seaweed that you put in the wraps and not the wrapping and which's name I forgot. Oh, and the rice of course. Also meatballs??? Don't ask me.
The world of sushi is vast and while there would be far more options for me if I weren't a vegetarian, there are easily at least three options and it's not just salads that won't actually fill me up. I can actually last for a few hours on what it offers.
Bless sushi.