I am used to seeing foreigners making “wasabi soup” with their soya sauce, and it makes no sense at all to wash your fish in a sauce bath. Why do people do it? The reason is our receptors are easily trained, we like pleasure and spice in our mouth bonds to our sensory system like glue.
In humans, the sense of taste is transmitted to the brain via three cranial nerves. When we eat spice, it stimulates the temperature fibers in the tongue, our brain gets stimulated and you get hooked.
It is difficult to explain to your tongue the perfect combination in sushi but it exists between; the seaweed, the rice and the fish.
I often use sea salt in place of soya sauce, as I find it more neutral and less imposing. To keep it simple, the fish must be fresh, pure, the seaweed sharp, crisp and the rice tasty enough to balance the three. This is the perfect sushi.
Filed under: Sushi n'Style Tagged: perfect fish, sushi etiquette, sushi in Tokyo, what is soja, why use soja, why use soya
