
Most Wasabi Is Fake [video] - dangerman
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/585172/wasabi-fake/
======
tptacek
In high-end Japanese restaurants, you can often get real wasabi (it'll be
listed at the bottom of the menu). My experience with it has been that it's
usually coarser, more watery, and less pungent than the "standard" wasabi. I
do not prefer it; whatever combination of horseradish and mustard restaurants
default to is, I think, the better product.

If I was eating wasabi on its own and trying to, I don't know, appreciate
varietals of it, I'd think differently. But for the most part I eat the little
blobs of wasabi as a palate cleanser and never explicitly add it to my dishes,
which I assume the cook already seasoned the way they wanted me to eat it.

~~~
mikekchar
Wow. That's amazing to me (and also that so many responders agree). I love
wasabi! It has a clean, sweet, chlorophyll taste to it. However, there are a
few caveats.

Real wasabi needs to be mashed, not grated. If you cut the cell walls it
doesn't produce the flavour properly. You need to break the cell walls. That's
why you use a shark skin "grater" (and it's important to press hard and
"grate" in a circular motion because you are really pulping it against the
shark skin).

Secondly, the flavour of wasabi changes dramatically from the time it is
"grated" and over the next 30 minutes. It is very hot immediately after you
grate it and gets progressively less hot over time. After about 30 minutes it
is practically tasteless. It's super important to time the "grating" with the
dish. At my favourite izakaya, the master's son (who does the fish) "grates"
the wasabi first, puts it on the plate, then cuts the fish, plates it and then
gives you the dish. This way the wasabi has reached it's peak flavour when you
receive the dish. You've got about 5-10 minutes to eat it until it goes
horrible.

Finally, the flavour varies considerably by season. I find winter wasabi to be
much sweeter than summer wasabi.

Now, at the risk of being slightly dismissive (which I don't intend to be), I
buy fresh wasabi from time to time and prepare it for myself. The result is
exactly as you describe and I have to say that my efforts are largely not
worth it. I even live in Shizuoka so I have access to good wasabi! The problem
is that preparing wasabi requires the correct tools, the correct technique and
practice -- none of which I have. I wonder if it is possible that the examples
you tried were possibly not the best...

~~~
pvaldes
> I find winter wasabi to be much sweeter than summer wasabi

This is a normal response in many plants. They accumulate sugars in cells in
cold months. Sugar acts then as antifreeze protecting the cell's integrity.

------
Mediterraneo10
So is most truffle oil. Canned reindeer meat in the Nordic countries can be up
to 40% pork. Budget-brand soy sauce might actually be "soy sauce powder" mixed
with water, as opposed to something straightforwardly brewed. If you travel
the developing world, you may find that what is sold as chocolate actually has
no cacao in it. Lots and lots of disappointments out there in the food world.
I find reading labels carefully and doing research online revelatory.

~~~
tru3_power
Another one is Kobe beef. Real Kobe beef is from the city of Kobe in Japan and
is only served in a handful of resturaunts in the US (I think 1 in NYC and a
few in LV). So next time you see Kobe beef on the menu- you know it’s most
likely a lie.

~~~
tptacek
You can get A5 wagyu all over the place in the US. The "tell" that you're
looking at fake "kobe beef" is when you could take the dish and swap "kobe"
for "angus" and the dish would still make sense; so, for instance, a "kobe
burger" always going to be silly and shady, and nobody would ever buy
"certified angus nigiri".

~~~
gotocake
I’d add that if you don’t like ultra-rare beer then it’s kind of a waste. I’m
not a fan of anything that isn’t medium, and by that temp a lot of the fine
marbling is effectively lost. In short, when I finally had some real A5 I
realized it was totally wasted on me. If you liked carpaccio though, it would
probably be amazing. I think too often people attach value judgements to
grades or things, to wine and the like, when the truth is thst individual
taste is highly variable. If you like a sensibly priced bottle of wine,
rejoice, it’s a good wine for you. If you’re someone who skews to the high
priced bottles then that’s going to be rough on the wallet, but again that’s
your taste.

The biggest mistake we make with food and drink is to “want the best” instead
of wanting the best _for us_. There is subsitute for trying lots of different
types of food and drink and choosing what you like the taste of most, not
what’s most applauded by experts or in vogue.

~~~
tptacek
There's a chapter in "The Man Who Ate Everything" (which is excellent) about
"Kobe", and you could sum it up as: it's a good product that is not simply a
"better version" of other steaks, and if not prepared specially (as in, in
dishes designed for A5 beef), it's pretty much a waste.

~~~
gotocake
In my limited experience that’s a perfect way of putting it. I might have to
read that book too, it seems interesting.

~~~
tptacek
Highest possible recommendation. It is one of the great food books.

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ericdykstra
I can get a chunk of wasabi for about $6 at my local greengrocer in Tokyo.
Unless you plan on eating a lot of sashimi at home within the next few days,
though, it’s not practical since it goes bad much faster than the tube stuff.

The taste is substantially better than the fake stuff, but it doesn’t really
matter if you’re eating at a cheap place that doesn’t properly prepare the
nigiri rice.

~~~
pzone
Local asian grocery store was selling chunks of wasabi for ~$60 here in
Boston, as of yesterday. Pricing was like $120/lb.

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etaioinshrdlu
Horseradish is a very nice vegetable anyways. I would eat it with sushi, I
just wish people had the honesty not to put coloring in it and call it
something it's not.

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euske
There are a dozen tubed wasabi products in Japan that are categorized by its
quality. 100% native wasabi produced in Japan, imported wasabi, 50% wasabi and
horseradish mixture, and so on.

But I found the degree of snobbery people show on HN (especially for Japanese
products) amusing.

~~~
axaxs
I agree with the last sentiment, but it's by no means just HN. It's prevalent
anywhere on the internet, and to a lesser extent, in real conversation.

Is there a name for the specific phenomenon of speaking highly of something
solely because it's semi rare or exclusive, especially in the area you're in?
Is it a subtle form of bragging?

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fataliss
Never thought I'd get "the feels" watching a video about wasabi. But I really
salute the initiative of making such a nicely done video to showcase a
dying(?) local artisanal practice. I think young people would find a lot more
interest in such professions if it was showcased like that!

~~~
ken
I remember taking tests in middle/high school to try to match students to
suggested career paths, but they were just job titles in a book, and maybe
also descriptions. They never showed the work environment. Nobody ever had a
clue where these people would work, or what it would look like, or what their
day-to-day tasks would be. At best they had scales like "abstract thinking" or
"work with your hands".

I might have been interested in following my dad's line of work (EE), had I
had any clue what it involved. In hindsight, he seemed to have a much nicer
office than any I've worked in. Unfortunately, even if I'd wanted to, the
company shut down that division 20 years ago, and then spun off that whole
sector of the business.

That's how it is with technology: easy come, easy go. We may never have a "9th
generation" software engineer, short of the point where everyone in the world
is a software engineer.

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davidw
Some people are growing it in Oregon:

[http://www.thewasabistore.com/the-farm](http://www.thewasabistore.com/the-
farm)

I recall reading about a past attempt in Oregon that failed, a while back.
Apparently it's not easy.

~~~
Stratoscope
I don't know what you mean by "attempting to grow it" and comparing them with
a "past attempt that failed, too."

I'm a happy customer of The Wasabi Store: their wasabi is the real deal and it
is delicious.

~~~
davidw
I edited it to clarify. It's difficult, apparently.

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asn0
After many years of peak wasabi use (i.e. highest saturation possible) at
Japanese restaurants in the US, I had a chance to eat sushi while on a trip to
Shanghai.

I don't know if Chinese wasabi is more real or not, but quickly learned it had
at least 10x more sinus-cleaning power than US wasabi.

That was also the first place where I had 'not possible to be any fresher'
sushi - orders were placed at the fish tanks on the first floor, restaurant
was upstairs.

~~~
dragonwriter
> That was also the first place where I had 'not possible to be any fresher'
> sushi - orders were placed at the fish tanks on the first floor, restaurant
> was upstairs.

While I won't question your description of the freshness, I would point out
that that set up would also work as a hack to _suggest_ freshness regardless
of where the ingredients that actually go into your food are sourced.

~~~
bpicolo
Supremely fresh seafood is drastically cheaper and more accessible in Shanghai
than in anywhere in the US. You can hop over to any local grocer / wet market
and find a half dozen varieties of live shrimp, eel, fish, etc.

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Stratoscope
I love the fresh real wasabi from The Wasabi Store in Oregon. A good place to
start is their gift pack which includes a wasabi grater and brush:

[http://www.thewasabistore.com/shop/gift-pack-wasabi-box-
culi...](http://www.thewasabistore.com/shop/gift-pack-wasabi-box-culinary)

They are nice people who grow delicious wasabi! (No affiliation, just a happy
customer.)

------
slics
Keep in mind, food tastes different in different regions. When I first arrived
in the states, I had no idea what to do with ketchup or mustard or foods in
the microwave bags. Back home (Europe) we grew everything ourselves in the
garden and there was no need for processing the food or spices. In the states
the food no longer is grown for taste, but for quantity. Looking at the video
I appreciate the garden foods, the flavor and uniqueness. You must have an
acquired taste for that kind of food/spice to really appreciate it and enjoy
it.

------
barbs
I'm ok with the fact that it's not real wasabi but how is this legal? Isn't
this blatant false advertising?

(Sorry if they address this in the video but tl;dw)

~~~
GuB-42
Fake wasabi actually contains a tiny amount of real wasabi. Sometimes as low
as 0.1%.

------
jhwhite
I thought everyone knew this. Alton Brown talked about it on Good Eats years
ago.

~~~
Semiapies
Same here. I've been reading about this since the early 90s, at least

Also, if it's a mildly expensive steak in your local Japanese restaurant, it's
neither Kobe nor Wagyu, as people have been pointing out since the 80s.

Maybe we _should_ have a Hacker Olds for stuff like this and the random
Wikipedia articles.

------
rdl
Kind of awesome that you can get it in SFBA (Berkeley) at Tokyo Fish Market
for $80/pound (which is expensive, but you don't use _that much_.

Grown in Half Moon Bay. Other US growing locations are Oregon and Washington
State.

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Quequau
I am no farmer. Hell, I'm not even a "Gentleman Farmer" however some years ago
I saw a video of couple growing wasabi and it struck me as a interesting and
fulfilling occupation.

Of course I don't live in Japan, or for that matter where I have access to
that sort of steady flowing clean water. But still...

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hristov
I had fresh real wasabi at a new york restaurant. To prove it was real, they
would grate it right of the root over your plate, the way they do with
expensive truffles. It was indeed very good. And yes it does hit your nose
first.

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Dowwie
the other day I noticed fresh wasabi root sold in a grocery store for roughly
$40-$50

~~~
ken
Per pound? That seems cheap. I've seen it at Uwajimaya, late on a Sunday
night, for US$99.99/lb. The man stocking it told me, "Get some now, while you
can! The restaurants will buy it all up and it'll be gone by morning."

~~~
Dowwie
Yep that's the stuff I saw. This was maybe 8 ounces.

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jefurii
This is true. I lived near a wasabi field for a time and the farmer used to
give me a few roots once in awhile. If you grate it yourself it's green but
not _that_ green.

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gjs278
you can buy freeze dried wasabi powder at whole foods for $10 that is real.
just mix a bit with water. it’s good.

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atomical
At what point does fake become the real thing? Do people really aspire to more
than they are getting? At some point _pure_ becomes obnoxious.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Just a truth-in-labelling thing. Not obnoxious; its consumer protection.

~~~
atomical
If consumers like the fake wasabi and most consumers have only had fake wasabi
then it's not really protecting the consumer.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sure it is; those that know the difference. Just call it something else. Like
horseradish for instance. Which is what it is.

------
peterwwillis
Most sushi places don't prepare nigiri properly in my experience. Each piece
of nigiri should have wasabi between the rice and seafood and a small amount
of sauce on top, intended to be eaten fish-side-down. (SF probably has the
most places that do it correctly outside NYC and LA)

You're welcome to eat it however you like, but the ginger is generally
speaking the palate cleanser while wasabi is historically both flavor enhancer
and an antibacterial agent.

~~~
cortesoft
I always like the sushi, ginger, and soy sauce/wasabi mixture all in the same
bite. Maybe I am weird, but I love that combination of flavors all at once.

~~~
tptacek
You're definitely not expected to eat the ginger along with the nigiri
(sometimes menus will point this out) but, I mean, if you like the way it
tastes, go for it. :)

The only thing I think we have to agree on is that people who mix wasabi in
with their soy sauce are evil.

