Monday, September 10th, 2007
#…A culprit to your California Roll
You really need to eat sushi the day you buy it and don’t try to “save it” in the refrigerator whether it’s takeout from that smart Japanese restaurant or pre-boxed at the corporate A&P – it needs to be eaten that day. And that’s not because of raw fish getting “fishy,” a common assumption, but according to the University of Florida’s Keith Schneider: “That’s because foods can interact when they’re placed together. Inside a sushi roll, bacteria sometimes find ideal conditions in the spaces where moist ingredients come in contact with dry ones, or where foods with different pH meet. The result: faster spoilage.” He also cites white rice not treated with vinegar as a culprit to your California Roll’s rapid deterioration.
Schneider, an associate professor of food science at UF, goes on to caution consumers who buy ready-to-eat sushi; do not let it warm up. Take it from the cooler just before purchase, bring it home quickly and refrigerate it immediately unless you plan to eat it right away.
If it does get warm, you really can’t re-refrigerate it – you’ve got to eat it then and there, or toss it in the trash.
In Tom Nordlie’s campus-based article, where I found this infinitely useful information, he quotes Sasha Issenberg, a journalist who authored “The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy,” to add a bit of color to this research-based story by dispelling the myth that sushi is exclusively a fine dining experience.
“In Japan, (sushi’s) origins are far closer to the experience of going to a supermarket and getting takeout and bringing it home, than actually sitting down in a sushi bar and spending $100 on your dinner and eating it there,” said Issenberg.
Just once I thought about buying sushi at the supermarket, but then I remembered a passage from Eric Schlosser’s alarmist horror novel “Fast Food Nation,” in which he reports that supermarkets color the beef red to make it look more appealing to consumers. Following this thinking it seems that grocery stores would color the fish too if need be, or use leftovers or something else awful. So in the end I’ll stick to my fancy Japanese joint, if for nothing else the waitresses are fun.
