15 Aug /14

Wasabi

Wasabi is a hot green-coloured condiment used in Japanese cooking, most often in sushi. A small amount of wasabi is placed on top of a piece of sushi rice which is then covered by a slice of raw fish. Because the amount used tends to be small, it brings a short, sharp burst of heat to the inside of the nose which soon disappears and the effect is much like that of horseradish or mustard. Indeed, because of the wasabi plants fragility in terms of its ability to retain flavour once harvested, many overseas sushi restaurants use a mixture of horseradish and green food colouring to give the impression of real wasabi.

All the way back in 1903, wasabi’s similarity to horseradish was noted in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry No. 42 bulletin which claimed that “there is a fresh sharpness about Japanese wasabi that not even the finest Austrian sorts of horse radish possess.” This was the first time that the term wasabi was mentioned in the English language, but over 100 years later it is still not a word widely understood by English speakers, unless they are fans of sushi.

In Japan, when you visit a sushi shop, you can order sushi with or without wasabi. Children don’t tend to eat it and in supermarkets you can find boxes of takeaway sushi that are labelled “no wasabi.” In some high end sushi restaurants, the chef will prepare the wasabi paste using the actual stem of the vegetable.