Japan is an island nation, its surrounding seas warmed by Kuroshio, the plankton-rich Japan Current, and abundant with an astonishing variety of fish and shellfish. The islands themselves are mountainous, and what little arable land exists is terraced and carefully cultivated to coax rice and a few other crops from the earth. Japan has always fed its dense population from the sea and the rice fields, its cuisine emphasizing what nature provides. Sushi, the combination of raw fish and seasoned rice that seems so exotic to foreigners, is a supremely logical food in Japan. Sushi began centuries ago in Japan as a method of preserving fish. It is told that the origins of sushi came from countries of Southeastern Asia. Cleaned, raw fish were pressed between layers of salt and weighted with a stone. After a few weeks, the stone was removed and replaced with a light cover, and a few months after that, the fermented fish and rice were considered ready to eat. Some restaurants in Tokyo still serve this original style of sushi, called narezushi made with freshwater carp. Its flavor is so strong that it obscures the fish's identity altogether, and narezushi is something of an acquired taste.
It wasn't until the eighteenth century that a clever chef named Yohei decided to forego the fermentation and serve sushi in something resembling its present form. It became very popular and two distinct styles emerged Kansai style, from the city of Osaka in the Kansai region, and Edo style, from Tokyo, which was then called Edo. Osaka has always been the commercial capital of Japan, and the rice merchants there developed sushi that consisted primarily of seasoned rice mixed with other ingredients and formed into decorative, edible packages. Tokyo, located on a bay then rich with fish and shellfish, produced nigirizushi, featuring a select bit of seafood on a small pad of seasoned rice. Although the ornamental sushi of the Kansai region is still very popular, it is nigirizushi that foreigners are familiar with.
Sushi is perhaps Japan's best-known contribution to world cuisine. The choicest, tender morsels of fresh raw fish are artfully arranged on individual "fingers" of vinegared rice by a skilled chef, and then placed on a gleaming cypress counter in front of the eagerly waiting customer a few seconds later. Absolute freshness of the fish is the all-important factor for good sushi. In fact, some devotees prefer their sushi as early in the day as possible. Although sushi seems like a simple food (it's not even cooked, after all), sushi preparation is actually a highly developed discipline, requiring years of apprenticeship under a master chef. If you watch closely, you may notice some of the chef's special techniques, such as dipping his hands in cold vinegared water before handling the fish, which both keeps the fish cool and fresh and prevents germs from his hands from contaminating the fresh fish. Sushi chefs always work quickly when handling the seafood, to keep it from heating in their hands, and they rarely talk while they're actually preparing the sushi.Today, even Japanese consider nigirizushi the origin of sushi, the truth is different. Kansai sushi (Osaka Sushi) has much more history and techniques than nigirizushi.