Cocina Digital presents
Iconic Foods & Drinks - The History of Sushi (part 1)

Easily identifiable, loved throughout the world, and still going strong centuries after it was “born,” sushi transitioned from being a dish only available in Japan to becoming a worldwide phenomenon...

...but only after centuries of upheaval in Japan herself.

While many know what sushi is, not nearly as many know the whole origin of sushi.

Sushi, so strongly associated with Japan, started as a fermentation process. Despite this unexpected beginning, sushi developed into being a favorite among diners the world over.

How did sushi achieve such a milestone?

Sushi has survived through centuries of feudal civil wars in Japan by warlords known as daimyo. It has survived the rise and fall of imperial Japan, and two World Wars.

Sushi launched into world-fame, ironically, in restaurants in the land of its enemy in World War II: the United States.

But before we go there, we need to turn the clock back — way back.

Although many Asian countries could have combined rice, fish, soy sauce, and produced what we call sushi, it was Japan that gets the credit.

Why Japan? What was going on? The history behind sushi, as we shall learn, spanned centuries and involved countries other than just Japan.

Japan, famous in history for samurais and katana swords, is also famous for being earthquake-prone with mountainous terrain. Only 11–12% of Japan's land is actually arable, meaning suitable for agriculture.

Samurai in everyday life in Edo (modern day Tokyo) in the early 1600s

As a comparison, the arable land in the United States is approximately 16%.

The percentages alone don't tell the whole story, though. You need to also account for the population that depends on that 11% of arable land in Japan.

That number for Japan is that only 328 m² of arable land is available per person.

In the United States, the number is 4,681 m² of arable land per person.

Yes, these are interesting facts, but how does all this come back to sushi, you might wonder?

Although populations increase in countries, what hasn’t changed in the centuries of Japan’s existence has been its ability to feed the population off of the land alone.

Given that Japan is an island-based country, it makes sense, then, that the ocean serves as a primary food source.

Catching fish in the waters off of Japan does not explain how sushi was invented, but it does explain the problem that needed to be solved that eventually led to sushi: how to keep fish from rotting in the times well before refrigerators.

Welcome to Iconic Foods & Drinks: The History of Sushi, presented by Cocina Digital.

Every Superhero Has an Origin Story, Sushi Included

What we know of as sushi today is generally dated back to the early part of the 19th century. In Japan, this time frame was part of the Edo period (1603-1867), a description given by historians to reference a key section of Japan's long history.

Hanaya Yohei (1799-1858)

Although hard to know for sure over two centuries later, but the Japanese chef Hanaya Yohei (1799-1858) is often cited as the originator or primary contributor to what we know as the recognizable form of sushi: “an oblong mound of rice with a slice of fish draped over it.”[1]

Chef Hanaya Yohei preparing sushi at his restaurant in the 1830s

While that bit of history is amazingly interesting, what may interest you more to know is that Chef Yohei's contribution to sushi came very late in the sushi history superhero origin story.

For that, we need to go even further back in Japanese history to a time known as the Muromachi period (1336-1573).

Most histories of sushi start in this period, while some go back even further (like at least 500 years before the Muromachi period).

Let's look at both real quickly: the pre-Muromachi period and the Muromachi period.

Pre-Muromachi Period

If the 19th century is when sushi came to take the form that we know it as today, then we can say that the process that led to the development of sushi was first documented in the 300s.

Yes, in the 300s — over 1,100 years before the Muromachi period and over 1,500 years before Hanaya Yohei started rolling sushi.

What was that development? Well, remember what we mentioned about no refrigeration?

As was common then and going back to ancient antiquity — probably even further — was the use of salt as a preservation agent. Sushi history and salt are intertwined.

In Southeast Asia in the 4th century (possibly earlier as well, but hey, what's a few centuries here or there at this point), salt and rice were being used to preserve fish.

This preservation process of salt, rice, and fish had a name and that name was narezushi.

Workers in the Mekong Delta fermenting freshly caught fish

Of note with this technique was that it was the fish that was the end product. The rice that was used in the process was discarded. In fact, narezushi is generally accepted as the name of the dish that makes use of fish in this process.

In this pre-Muromachi period, then, they had a way to preserve fish, but no rice being included in the dish. So, not sushi as we know it today.

Additionally, this whole preservation goodness is not even happening in Japan, but rather, in Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia comprises the countries of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand. It does NOT include Japan since Japan is approximately 2,400 km (about 1,500 miles) away.

Not only is that a great distance in today's times, that was an epic distance back then. Despite the distance, what we can all agree upon regarding world history is that ideas travel.

The process of narezushi made its way to Japan in at least the 8th century. We know this because Japanese writings from that time are suspected to refer to narezushi.[2]

With narezushi finding a home in Japan, we can now time travel forward to the Muromachi period (1336-1573) and see how narezushi evolved.

Muromachi Period (1336-1573) and Namanare

During this period, the Japanese came up with namanare, a type of sushi where the rice used in the preservation process was now served with the fish instead of being discarded.

“In other words, with the invention of namanare, sushi changed from a preserved fish food to a food where fish and rice are eaten together.”[3]

Although this period gave us a new form of sushi, it was really the innovation of using vinegar that makes it noteworthy, not the new form of sushi itself. We'll explain why vinegar was a game-changer in the next section.

So, let's time travel forward to the Edo period to see how things continued to evolve.

Edo Period (1603-1867) and Haya-Zushi

Before the Edo period, everything about sushi was about reducing the time needed for the fermentation process. Now, with the use of vinegar — especially rice vinegar — sushi could separate itself from the fermentation process to simply be a dish.

As such, the Edo period and the use of vinegar gave us a third type of sushi called haya-zushi. From haya-zushi, we get various permutations of this sushi that were influenced by the various regions of Japan with their local preferences and flavors.

Remember that chef that we mentioned called Hanaya Yohei?

Well, the story has it that in 1824, Chef Yohei started developing a form of sushi that is called nigirizushi.

Clearly the Edo period was well before refrigeration, but unlike the Muromachi period and earlier, no longer did rice and fish have to be fermented since vinegar took care of that.

You could say that thanks to vinegar, Chef Yohei could up the culinary arts game of sushi and that's how we got nigirizushi — the form of sushi that most of the world is familiar with today.

Sushi Only for Japan

The Edo period lasted for 265 years. During this time, Japan was an isolationist nation, meaning it limited which foreigners were allowed into the island country.

Despite the existence of an emperor and an imperial family in Japan, the actual power of the Japanese government resided in the hands of a single individual who was granted this power by the emperor.

The title of this role was shogun.

The shogun enjoying sushi during the Edo period

Sushi was being enjoyed by commoners and higher social classes in Japan in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, but the isolationist nature of Japan during the 265 years of the Edo period impeded the spread of sushi out of Japan.

Although the Edo period officially ended in 1868, it would not be until the 20th century and two World Wars before sushi came to be mainstream in all parts of the world.

Sushi history, unlike the Edo period, would continue on.

We will look at that remarkable leap in part II of our research into sushi's evolution: Iconic Foods & Drinks: Sushi Today.