
How Norway Created Salmon Sushi - ascertain
http://www.npr.org/2015/09/18/441530790/how-the-desperate-norwegian-salmon-industry-created-a-sushi-staple
======
TheMagicHorsey
There was actually a very sensible rule followed in China and Japan about
eating raw fish. You only ate sea fish raw, while freshwater fish were always
cooked.

There's a good rationale behind this. Freshwater fish tend to carry parasites
that can cross the species boundary between fish and human. Whereas, sea fish
do not tend to carry such parasites. You can understand the reason for that
based on natural selection. Its an exceedingly rare event for a sea fish to be
eaten by a land mammal (at least it was on the scale of evolutionary time
before modern times), so most parasites of sea fish have not evolved a
mechanism to exist in land mammal bodies. Whereas fresh water fish are often
eaten by land mammals, and so many strains of parasites have adapted to make a
smooth transfer from fish to land mammal body.

Its very sensible NOT to eat raw Salmon. Although they end up in the sea, they
have two phases of life in bodies of fresh water where they can pick up
parasites that can transfer to a human host.

~~~
pvaldes
Is because Diphyllobothriasis, cestode larvaes from freshwater fishes that can
be very dangerous for humans; but the fish metazoan parasite that send more
sushi lovers to the hospital is marine in fact.

Anisakiasis by roundworm larvae in raw fish or squid normally is not a big
problem but is painful, and can lead to serious health issues sometimes. Any
competent japanese chef will know how to deal with it. European law obliges to
restaurants to frozen all fish destined to be served as sushi just for this.

~~~
rsync
"European law obliges to restaurants to frozen all fish destined to be served
as sushi just for this."

Really ? All fish served as sushi in Europe has been previously frozen ?

~~~
pvaldes
I can not speak for all asiatic restaurant owners in London, Berlin or Paris,
but most chefs specialized in serving raw fishes do not joke about this and
avoid the problem using special ultra-freezers. This reduces the safety-time
to several hours (It is known that Anisakis larvae can survive for about a
week in a domestic freezer) and helps to keep the quality of the sashimi.
Thus, when you hear 'fresh', you probably should decode this as 'ultra-frozen
in fresh' as something totally natural.

The cut of sashimi in translucent fine lames is probably a way to detect and
clean the fish of any visible parasites before to serve it. Exposing the
beauty of the fish muscle in intrincated designs you are also showing the
client that your product is of optimum quality and totally clean.

------
pi-rat
Visiting sushi places in Japan, they often have pictures of northern lights
and Norwegian mountains telling customers they have fresh salmon shipped from
Norway by air:
[http://www.eikeland.se/snap/salmon.jpg](http://www.eikeland.se/snap/salmon.jpg)

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I'm told that they fly cargo planes with salmon from Norway to Japan, unload
salmon then fill the planes with electronics, fly to eastern Europe where the
various brands have their continent-wide warehouses, unload electronics and
then fly to Norway to load up with salmon again.

~~~
pvaldes
A very interesting connection with our laptops. And very logical also; a
common trick when you export something is to assure to fill the wide
containers with anything that you can buy cheap in the destiny country before
to return home. Thus you optimize your transport costs or, like in this case,
share it with other companies.

------
ncnc
Most of the cultivated salmon is actually containing significant amounts of
heavy metals (due to the sea fish they get fed). And it is also given large
amounts of medication to prevent sickness and parasites. This all ends up on
our plates... I love salmon, but have almost fully stopped eating it, lacking
a trusted source. Also because the salmon get fed with seafish, cultivating
them actually contributes to overfishing the oceans. There is a german
documentary about it here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Sl_wjiOyI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Sl_wjiOyI)

~~~
sigma2015
the overfishing problem you mention is also addressed in "Cowspiracy"
([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3302820/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3302820/))
which I highly recommend. Since few days available on Netflix Germany.

------
pvaldes
Another way of see this is that both, Japan and Norway have a big aquaculture
industry and they compete.

To assure the control of the salmon's market is an essential goal for Norway
as nation; they produce 1 million of tons each year for the european market.
When somebody tries to farm new salmon (in France or Spain or whatever) they
typically flood the market with below cost salmon or trouts until the
competence is distroyed by lack of rentability. This is probably the reason
for not having salmon farms in the NW pacific that could be much more
convenient for the Japanese market in the 80's. Only very big companies with
lots of resources and money can dare to enter here.

~~~
twic
Interesting. Quite a lot of salmon and trout in the UK is Scottish. It never
occurred to me that we might only be eating it locally, and not exporting it.

~~~
pvaldes
UK produces 162.000 ton of farmed salmon in Scotland and 11.000 ton of rainbow
trout (2012) but it lacks of many suitable areas to growth and currently is
the 5 or 6th european country.

Norway produced instead 1,3 million tons of salmon in 2012 (and growing). Is
the first european productor and by far the largest (Spain is the second with
about 260.000 tons/year of mussels). Their aquaculture industry is an
strategic sector for this 'small' (in terms of population) nation.

Is interesting how Norway won against the huge japan pride focusing in
improving the visibility in supermarkets and targetting people that wanted
cheap food. Realizing that to target first the higher social classes was a
lost battle from the start.

~~~
digi_owl
Best i can find indicates that the 2013 exports slumped below the million ton
mark...

------
jpatokal
To this day, the salmon in Japanese sushi restaurants is _always_ labeled サーモン
"saamon", which is known to be imported and is OK to eat raw; and never 鮭
"s(h)ake", which is (usually) local and always salted and cooked first -- even
though ''shake'' as a term covers all types of salmons.

~~~
klunger
I lived there for two years and clearly remember it being labelled as 鮭 (while
painstakingly learning the words and characters too for different common foods
as well). Granted, this was about 10 years ago, so maybe it has changed?

~~~
jpatokal
In a sushi restaurant? Of course there are lots of 鮭 dishes in izakayas and
such, but I've never seen any in a sushi restaurant.

See also:
[http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q114...](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1149858456)

------
kijin
The fact that the Norwegians had to freeze all of their surplus salmon
probably helped, too. Freezing kills parasites, eliminating the #1 reason the
Japanese didn't want to eat raw salmon.

Nowadays, most salmon stays frozen until a few hours before it goes on your
sushi. Salmon is uniquely suited for freezing/thawing because its high fat
content helps it retain texture. Freezing also has the side effect of giving
salmon a relatively long shelf life, making it readily available in parts of
the world that are thousands of miles away from actual salmon sources.

~~~
varjag
The only reason Norwegian salmon getting frozen is transportation.
Domestically, it is sold chilled near exclusively. Well and in a few
smoked/fermented variants certainly.

------
jmadsen
Interesting! Lived in Japan a long time, and always half-wondered why it was
"salmon" for sushi & "sake" for everything else but never asked.

------
hellofunk
Fascinating. I love sushi but never knew that so much of it was actually of
Norway's influence. Unlike the famed influence of sushi chefs in west Canada
and California in the mid-20th century, which carried over into the names of
popular sushi rolls (the "California" roll), it would seem this Norway
invention was even more important, but where are my Norway rolls?

~~~
tormeh
Keep in mind that California is _very_ good at PR. Or bragging. Depends on how
you look at it. Other places are similar, of course. Paris, and France in
general, comes to mind, but so does Berlin. London can't decide if it's
awesome or rubbish, but it knows it's important. California is convinced it's
the center of the universe.

~~~
hellofunk
The the logic I can draw from your statement is that Norway is a very humble
place :)

~~~
tormeh
Well, yes, that's half of it. The other half is that social status is more
implicit here.

~~~
hellofunk
I'm down in Holland, thinking about visiting Norway soon, it's just across the
little pond, after all. Maybe some of that implicit status will rub off on my
during my visit. You have a recommendation for a good place for a Norway-
newbie to visit?

~~~
csl
As a tourist? Go to the north west: Møre og Romsdal and further up north,
Lofoten. If you want to visit the national parks, go east from Møre (the mid
parts of Norway). I'm Norwegian, and if you want to see postcard nature, you
have to go to the norhern coastal parts. Don't go just to Oslo or Stavanger
and think that's all there is (although both are beautiful in their own ways).
Go in late July or August. Best wishes!

------
cpach
Fascinating! Here's another, longer article about this phenomenon:
[http://www.nortrade.com/sectors/articles/norways-
introductio...](http://www.nortrade.com/sectors/articles/norways-introduction-
of-salmon-sushi-to-japan/)

------
filvdg
When I lived in Argentina we would call Sushi restaurants "Salmon shops" as
they would never serve Tuna, it would be 95% salmon and some minute pieces of
white fish.

~~~
pvaldes
Those are raised in Chile probably, the american productor of Salmon. Is the
same as Norway for European market (and often farms belong to Norwegian or
Norway/Chile mixed companies).

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> productor

You're probably looking for the English work 'producer'.

~~~
pvaldes
Yes, thank you for the correction

------
e12e
Ironically, a large part of Norwegian Salmon is now owned by Mitsubishi:
[http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/mitsubishi-to-buy-
sal...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/mitsubishi-to-buy-salmon-
producer-for-1-39-billion/)

~~~
pvaldes
Didn't know, but i'm not suprised. The history is much more interesting in
fact. They seem to have invented the fishcoin with mediterranean resources:

(2009):
[http://www.worldfishingtoday.com/news/default.asp?nyId=3387](http://www.worldfishingtoday.com/news/default.asp?nyId=3387)

(2013): [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-rigney/japan-bluefin-
tuna...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-rigney/japan-bluefin-
tuna_b_2504942.html)

------
jinushaun
The more you know…

The article mentions salmon being responsible for the popularity of sushi
globally. I actually prefer salmon sushi over tuna sushi by far. In fact, if
it wasn't for salmon, I probably would've never like sushi. My first few
experiences were with tuna and I hated it each time.

------
kevindeasis
speaking of sushi, here's a video about the extinction of blue fin tuna
(includes economics, history, culture):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hivvTo6VSS8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hivvTo6VSS8)

~~~
sovande
One more reason to eat salmon sushi, salmon is farmed and will not go extinct.

~~~
4ad
Farmed salmon is much inferior to wild salmon though.

~~~
anonymousDan
Amen. I'm originally from the west of Ireland and we used to sometimes get
fresh wild salmon from a local river off a fisherman friend of the family. The
taste difference was just amazing. The farmed stuff is liking eating plastic
in comparison. The other thing that makes a huge difference in my experience
is to have fish that's never been frozen (someone once told me the reason has
to do with the crystallization process killing the taste, although I've no
idea how that works).

~~~
akiselev
> (someone once told me the reason has to do with the crystallization process
> killing the taste, although I've no idea how that works)

The crystallization process in this case means that the solid crystal formed
by water freezing into ice ruptures all of the cell walls, releasing their
contents. Once that happens the chemistry of the food can change drastically
as enzymes and proteins that were once only active inside cells are now
floating everywhere.

In the case of frozen salmon, the taste appears to come from some sort of
enzymatic process involving fatty acids [1].

[1]
[http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf000021c](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf000021c)

------
unusximmortalis
Well THANK you Norway!!! I simply LOVE sushi salmon, raw salmon. If it wasn't
for you who knows if I would've got this pleasure :)

------
GlennS
I do think that smoked salmon makes better sushi than raw.

~~~
pvaldes
Probably. I remember a wild salmon smoked with fir wood and with entire pepper
grains in a small village in Sweden that was absolutely memorable. My parents
sniffed the smoke, entered automatically in bloodhound mode and find a
fisherman that was working in a lake beach and sell them one.

I like also the raw but can come in several different qualities. Some are very
good, other not so.

------
MrJagil
As always when sushi is mentioned on HN, here is a link to the fine
documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772925/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772925/)

And Tampopo should be in the same vain, supposedly very good, fiction though:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048)

~~~
lamby
> As always when sushi is mentioned on HN, here is a link to the fine
> documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Which always amuses me because, at least to me, «Jiro Dreams of Sushi» is not
remotely about sushi at all.

~~~
sho
To be fair, it actually is _remotely_ about sushi.

------
henriquemaia
How I read:

How Norway Created _Salman Rushdie_.

~~~
kzrdude
That's an equally valid reading. The author is dead, after all. ;-)

------
walkingolof
Norwegian farmed salmon are among the biggest sources of food-borne
contaminants in a normal diet. It contains four times as much dioxin as the
highest permissible limit for meat, eggs and milk.

~~~
hellofunk
Apparently this warning has been lifted:

[http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/norway-farmed-
sal...](http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/norway-farmed-salmon-safe-
public-eat-article-1.2047012)

~~~
walkingolof
Go for wild catched cod (for example) from the Atlantic or Pacific instead,
the food given to the Salmon contains large quantities of fish caught in the
Baltic sea which is more or less unfit for human consumption.

------
suryon
Screw the sushi. Kimbab is the new hot thing.

