
The Great Sushi Craze of 1905, Part 1 - sergeant3
http://eccentricculinary.com/the-great-sushi-craze-of-1905-part-1/
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jordan0day
What's _extremely_ funny to me is that this article is at least half about how
much we underestimate (or flat out don't know much about) the people of the
19th and early 20th centuries.

And the sole comment thread here is full of people saying "No way were people
in North Dakota capable of eating sushi in 1905".

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moogleii
Actually, they're saying it's likely they were eating fresh water fish, which
I think is a very astute observation that the article doesn't go into. Japan
itself did not bother eating salmon for fear of parasites until much later.

To be honest, the article highlights some interesting history, but seems a bit
editorialized for my tastes. As I commented there:

Very interesting article, but there seems to be an odd amount of time spent in
adulation of Japan that I think could give an impression of less history and
more "rose tinted glasses." It wasn't that long before the focused time period
that Westerners were not treated so kindly in Japan.

"And that, in microcosm, was the general attitude of 19th century Americans to
both the Chinese and the Japanese; one despised, the other admired. Over and
over in newspapers and magazines of the era, the Japanese are praised as a
clean, well-bred, delightful race, the “most civilizable” in Asia. The
Chinese? Not so much."

This seems to be laying it a bit thick on the generalizations. The Japanese
weren't exactly welcomed with open arms by everybody (and I'd love to see some
citations about the implied universal hatred of the Chinese [and some more
background information on why that is so wouldn't hurt if we're going to be
throwing that in there anyway, but that too could fill its own article]).
Indeed, the Japanese, too, were excluded once the "yellow" fear descended upon
them just like the other East Asians.

Speaking of gyoza (which btw I think you've misspelled), there's a bit of
"delicious" irony there when considering that it very likely has Chinese
origins (even when just purely considering an etymological analysis), and yet,
as your article points out, from a 19th century Westerner's view, it's good
riddance to the Chinese folks, in with the Japanese folks!

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comrade1
They weren't flying in salt water fish to North Dakota in 1905. And so their
sushi was probAbly local fresh water fish.

They probably all got worms, or maybe even had worms to begin with. The
freshwater clam lifecycle is one of the more complicated life cycles and
interesting.

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jff
Salt water fish could possibly have made the trip via train from Seattle,
packed on ice, although I'd expect it to be rather expensive.

Smoked salmon also makes very tasty sushi if fresh isn't available. Tamago is
an option that might appeal to a reluctant North Dakotan.

Oh, and salmon can be found in some waters of North Dakota; I don't know if
they're landlocked or what, but that's an option too.

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ethbro
Even in the early 1900s, as far as I can tell people living in North Dakota
would likely not have been unfamiliar with interesting seafood (or at least
had neighbors who were).

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_emigration_to_the_Un...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_emigration_to_the_United_States)

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comrade1
As part of the ancestry of that Swedish immigration wave to the Midwest, all I
know of is lutefisk, which is by no means sushi. It's about the most vile
thing you can imagine - dried cod turned to fish jello in lye. You can smell
it from miles away when it's being cooked, and... well, the smell is worse
than the taste, but to think of equating that with sushi...

I don't think you can even call it seafood.

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kevin_thibedeau
> It's about the most vile thing you can imagine

Surströmming beats lutefisk for that title.

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notNow
Wait to try or smell Fisikh[1] and you'll change your mind instantly.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fesikh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fesikh)
and pronounced like this "Fisíj" borrowing from Spanish

