Sushi-Eating Lessons

I'll have to remember Noriko Takiguchi's instructions (Link via Instapundit) on the art of eating sushi the next time I have the urge to eat raw fish. My favorite sushi roll by far is the Super Crunch at Surin. Yum.

Here are a few interesting facts I learned from Takiguchi's series of posts:

From Part I - Read the signs:

You may notice that sushi chefs usually do not have hair on their arms.
Every piece of sushi has to be produced from clean plain looking hands and arms...

Some historians say women have not been welcome behind the sushi counter because female body temperature is higher and not suitable for handling raw fish...

From Part II - Some History

...rolled sushi is largely an invention of the US, especially the kind like avocado rolls, hot spicy tuna rolls, and many more complicated-named rolls, and has now been imported back to Japan as a hot trend.

The sushi of today -- a small ball of rice and a slice of raw fish on top with wasabi (the spicy green paste) in between -- is actually called ‘Edo sushi’ because it was strictly invented there in Edo (now Tokyo).

From Part III - The Encounter

Gari is the pink sliced pickled ginger that comes with sushi. It is made of ginger with sweet vinegar...Gari is served with sushi for two reasons. The older one is because ginger has sterilization effect, in case the fish is not completely fresh...The new reason is because gari has neutralizing effect on taste when your tongue becomes numb in eating series of fish.

From Part IV - the Order of Sushi Eating

You might want to start with some white fish like bream, red snapper or flatfish, then try what is called “fish with shiny skin” like mackerel, sardine, halfbeak, and dark colored meat fish like bonito, tuna and salmon. You then proceed to squid, octopus and shellfish. Closer to the end, you might want to add sea urchin, salmon roe or some cooked fish like eel or conger that come with thick sauce. To finish, some people order rolled sushi wrapped in fragrant nori (the black sea weed) or even tamago (omelet) as almost like a dessert.

From Part V - Something About Soy Sauce

...you should dip the fish side, not the rice, into the soy sauce.