Archive for June, 2011

Sustainable Seafood

A few days ago McDonald’s announced that, under an agreement with the Marine Stewardship Council, they would be serving sustainable seafood in their fish sandwiches in Europe soon. While I have never been a fan of processed food and corporations who value profits over people, this is certainly a step in the right direction. Europeans are, by nature, much more concerned than Americans about food sustainability and other environmental issues, hence the pilot program for sustainable seafood beginning there. It would be nice if the idea caught on and spread globally to all restaurants, including sushi restaurants, as with some pelagic species being fished to near extinction, following a program of sustainable seafood may be the only way to keep sushi and other seafood dishes on our plates.

Interestingly, Wal-Mart also has a plan to require all if it’s seafood suppliers to their stores, as well as their Sam’s Club stores, to obtain certification from the MSC for their products, and Costco, Korger, and Supervalu are also jumping on the bandwagon. While this is a pleasant step in the right direction for sustainable seafood, many organizations take issue with the MSC and their certification practices, as they still allow certain types of seafood harvesting including trawling of the seafloor, which is very destructive, and there are some venues that refuse to work with them due to their allowing certain practices to remain in place, which can destroy the seabeds, even if catches are limited and monitored.

Ultimately, while this seems like a good idea for corporate interests, and possibly for the longevity of the many pelagic species, this is just a blip in the radar in the drive for sustainable seafood. It’s great marketing for the aforementioned corporations, though. If we want to save our most revered seafood species, the onus is truly on the consumer as our seafood choices are more important than we realize. If we continue to eat threatened species, they will be with us no longer, so the only way change will ever happen is is we vote with our wallets and refuse to eat the fish that are considered endangered.

Sustainable seafood is not an impossible dream, and organizations such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium are working to educate consumers as to which seafood choices are the best to make when fish is on the menu. Wild caught, fish farming, and conservation are among the many topics that must be continually reviewed to determine the sustainability of the seafood market, and if future generations want to enjoy sushi, a sea change is needed in the way we view our ocean herds. Make a difference yourself when you go out for sushi and educate yourself to ensure that you are part of the sustainable seafood solution, rather than part of the problem.

I just wanted to pass along a little information I received recently. Apparently six people became ill with Vibrio parahaemolytics from raw oyster consumption in the source state, Washington. The raw oysters were distributed to 11 other states and five countries (Canada, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand). No other illnesses have been reported. Guidance for safe consumer consumption of fully cooked oysters is included.

FDA Expands Warning on Eating Raw Oysters
Media Inquiries: Michael Herndon, 301-827-6242
Consumer Inquiries: 888-INFO-FDA

Additional Growing Area Linked to Illness Outbreaks

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to eat raw oysters harvested from an additional part (growing area 5) of the southern tip of Hood Canal in Washington state due to a foodborne illness outbreak caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus bacteria. This follows an earlier outbreak and August 10 warning about oysters harvested from growing area 6 of Hood Canal.

Symptoms of the illness, vibriosis, include watery diarrhea, often with abdominal cramping, nausea, vomiting, fever, and chills. Usually these symptoms occur within 24 hours of ingestion and last no more than three days. Severe disease is rare and occurs most commonly in people with weakened immune systems. Those who believe they have experienced these symptoms after consuming raw oysters should consult their health care provider and contact their local health department.

Raw oysters harvested from growing area 5 in Hood Canal from July 31 through August 20, 2007 have caused at least six people to become ill in Washington state. To date, records indicate that raw oysters from the area were distributed to Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington state, British Columbia (Canada), Bali (Indonesia), Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand.

The Washington State Department of Health has closed the growing area associated with the illness and has asked commercial oyster harvesters and dealers who obtained oysters from this area to recall them.

Consumers who have recently purchased oysters should check with the place of purchase and ask if they were harvested from the affected growing areas. The recall involves both shucked oysters and oyster in the shell (shell stock oysters).

Those with weakened immune systems, including people affected by HIV/AIDS, chronic alcohol abuse, liver, stomach, or blood disorders, cancer, diabetes, or kidney disease, should avoid eating raw oysters, regardless of where they are harvested.

FDA advises that consumers can continue to enjoy oysters in many cooked preparations by doing the following:

At Restaurants and other Foodservice Establishments:

· Order oysters fully cooked.

In the Shell:

· Purchase oysters with the shells closed

· Throw away any oysters with shells already opened.

· Never allow raw seafood to come into contact with cooked food.

· Boil or steam the oysters:

· Boil oysters until the shells open. Once shells open, boil for an additional three to five minutes.

· To steam—add oysters to water that is already steaming and cook live oysters until the shells open, once open steam for another four to nine minutes.

· Use smaller pots to boil or steam oysters. Using larger pots, or cooking too many oysters at one time,

· Discard any oysters that do not open during cooking.

Shucked Oysters:

· Never allow raw seafood to come into contact with cooked food.

· Cook the oysters in one of the following ways:

· Boil or simmer shucked oysters for at least three minutes or until the edges curl.

· Fry at 375° F for at least three minutes.

· Broil three inches from heat for three minutes.

· Bake at 450° F for 10 minutes.

For more information:
Hood canal oyster area closed — second closure due to illness outbreak – a news release from the Washington State Department of Health
http://www.doh.wa.gov/Publicat/2007_news/07-143.htm

FDA’s discussion on V. parahaemolyticus is in the “Bad Bug Book.”

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/chap9.html

A description about V. parahaemolytics from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/vibrioparahaemolyticus_g.htm

CDC/MMWR gives a list of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports at CDC relating to V. parahaemolyticus.. The date shown is the date the item was posted on the Web, not the date of the MMWR. The summary statement shown are the initial words of the overall document. The specific article of interest may be just one article or item within the overall report.

http://www.cdc.gov/search.do?action=search&direction=desc&queryText=vibrio+cholerae&sort=date&subset=mmwr

NIH/PubMed (a service of the US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health) provides a list of research abstracts contained in the National Library of Medicine’s MEDLINE database for V. parahaemolyticus..

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&dispmax=50&term=O139%5BWORD%5D%20AND%20Food%20Microbiology%5BMeSH%5D

AGRICOLA will provide a list of research abstracts contained in the National Agricultural Library database on V. parahaemolyticus.

http://agricola.nal.usda.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&CNT=25&Search_Arg=Vibrio+cholerae+non-o1&Search_Code=GKEY&STARTDB=AGRIDB

The Seafood HACCP Alliance Compendium and the FDA’s Hazards Guide provide information on how to develop HACCP plans to control for this biological hazard.

http://seafood.ucdavis.edu/haccp/compendium/chapt20.htm – HACCP Alliance Compendium

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/haccp4d.html – FDA’s Hazards Guide (note the FDA is expecting to release a new version possibly by the end of this year)

US FDA Food Code recommendations for cooking fish (includes molluscan shellfish as defined by the FDA seafood HACCP regulation 21 CFR 123 part 123.3(d) http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/searule3.html ) is 145F/63C for 15 sec.; 155F/68C for 15 sec for comminuted fish; and 165F/74C or above for 15 sec for stuffed fish.

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~acrobat/fc05-3.pdf – see 3-401.11 Raw Animal Foods (starts on p. 72)

A list of resources on V. parahaemolyticus are listed at the bottom of this announcement.

I have recently set up a wiki that I have entitled the “Sushi-ya-pedia” that I would like to turn into a community powered sushi bar finder and restaurant review resource. In my opinion, there is no better reviewer than diners ourselves, so I’m working hard to get every restaurant in the US (and eventually the world) into the database, but I encourage anyone who may be interested in participating to head on over and check it out. Feel free to create an account and make your voice heard. If you don’t know how to create a wiki page, you are always welcome to email me and I would be happy to update your favorite restaurant with your description and review. For starters, you please visit:

http://www.sushifaq.com/sushiyapedia/
http://www.sushifaq.com/sushiyapedia/index.php/Formatting
http://www.sushifaq.com/sushiyapedia/index.php/Help:Contents

Please join and help make the Sushi-Ya-Pedia the most useful place for sushi lovers on the ‘net to find their food!

Meshi agare!
Warren

Every once in a while I read something about the restaurant business that makes me so incredibly happy that I am a regular at a few sushi places and trust them implicitly. I walk in, they know I am a regular and I am treated as such. There is a reason that I am a regular too, I trust their practices and I love their food. And most especially, they are nothing like Sushi World.

I don’t think it takes a brain surgeon to realize that making sushi in a place used for pigeons and cats is not a good idea. Especially when your customers are starting to suffer from food poisoning. I can only wonder why it took the Australian authorities so long to shut them down. Places like this are certainly not limited to Australia, and I have heard my share of horror stories about places in North America, but I’ve always associated Australia with fresh seafood (perhaps a stereotype, but at least a good one). I’ll have to get myself over there to test the waters, so to speak. And maintain my status as a ‘regular’ at my local places, so when I’m in the kitchen talking to the chefs, I can be sure that there are no critters present, be they furry or flying.

I recently added a new section to the Sushi FAQ entitled How to Make Sushi at Home. It is a relatively detailed while hopefully easy to follow treatise on making sushi at home with tips, preparation ideas, and everything you need to know about, well… making sushi at home. The section is broken up into areas for sushi, maki, sashimi, etc… for those of you who want to try all the different styles of sushi. Please feel free to send me any comments or suggestions as to how I can improve the site. I make sushi at home every once in a while and thought that there must be plenty of folks out there who either never thought of it, never knew how, or just weren’t comfortable doing it. Hopefully now you will see just how easy it can be. It takes practice to get really good, but I guarantee that even your first attempts will be tasty. So give it a try. Go visit How to Make Sushi at Home and have some fun. It will be well worth your while.
Meshi Arage!
Warren
The sushi guy.

Of course it had to happen. After last week’s “sushi pet peeves” post I was at my favorite sushi-ya last night and there they were. I was sitting at the bar (the drink bar, not the sushi bar) waiting for my second take out order to be filled (long story) and staring hard at the bottle of Geikkeikan Black and Gold sake (my current favorite). As usual, I was eavesdropping on just about everyone’s conversation as I like to hear what other people have to say about the restaurant and the food. A group of three sat next to me and started talking about all sorts of stuff. Up came the question “do you like this place?” And his response… “I’ve never been here before. I don’t like fish so I don’t eat sushi.”

That was a real head scratcher for me. He’s come to a not inexpensive sushi-ya with a serious reputation for its high quality sushi. But I guess he figures he’s going to eat chicken teriyaki? OK, I’m not one to judge, but that’s one expensive place to come for chicken, which, in my opinion is the one food I’ll never order out. After all, it’s chicken and frankly no one can prepare it any better than you can at home. Obviously he was there with friends, who probably all ate sushi and were in for a good time. But it’s always funny to hear something like that in a sushi-ya. But when they were seated I realized that he’s wasting a perfectly good seat at the sushi bar, where I should have been sitting, snacking, while waiting for my take out.

Warren
The sushi guy.

Well this is my second post that seems to have hit upon something because my traffic went up dramatically. But it raises an issue. About 80% of the incremental traffic came from one particular website where a link was posted, and I thought I’d address three issues that came up in that community (and some not too nice emails I have received). Many folks there were pretty nice when commenting on the link and appreciated that was not meant to be an end-all be-all definitive guide, just my observations. There were some outright hostile folks (where did that come from?) which was something that I don’t quite understand. I don’t want to name the site because I’d rather not give them any attention. But… To address what I feel was unwarranted (and some hostile) criticism:

1. The claim: I’m elitist.
I’ve never thought I was elitist, nor do I intend to be. I happen to have a fair amount of knowledge about the topic of sushi, and I want to share my opinions and what I have learned over the years. The use of proper terminology is useful, I think within the context of this blog. I also don’t feel it’s elitist to suggest that there may be a “proper” way to eat sushi, at least when viewed traditionally, and I thought I was clear that I was not issuing an edict saying “you must do it this way.” My goal is, again, to share my experience and knowledge, not to tell people what to do. See my blog as an item of interest or curiosity if nothing else.

2. The claim: I’m in it for the money.
I’m sorry to say that there is no money in what I’m doing. I’ve thrown a few ads up here and on SushiFAQ.com in the event that one day the pittance I receive might pay my bandwidth costs, but if you have ever seen the bids on sushi related keywords, you would find it underwhelming. In the seven months since I started Sushi Otaku I’ve gotten about 5 clicks on ads, each paying a few pennies. And I don’t make much more than that on SushiFAQ.com. I almost wish it were true that I’m just a greedy you-know-what, but if I were, I’d be writing about something with high paying keywords, not about sushi.

3. The claim: I’m dumb.
I’m not sure how to argue this one post my SAT scores? I acknowledge the obvious nature of some of my points in my “How to Find a Good Sushi Restaurant” piece. It was not meant to be an in-depth analysis of the situation, just a basic set of guidelines to think about. What else is a blog than the opinions of someone who thinks they know about something? It’s a blog, folks. Get over it and get angry about something that actually matters. Change the world (oh, but that would be too hard, let’s just make fun of a guy who writes about sushi).

There were also the standard “you’re a jerk” and other angry types of responses, but of course it’s never worth wasting the energy arguing those points since you can never change the minds of folks who fly off the cuff like that. Let them stew in their own unhappiness. I like constructive criticism. I like comments on my blog, and if I can make it more interesting or informative I ask everyone out there to tell me how I can do this. But most of all I’m just having fun and I hope entertaining a few of you out there who care about sushi. I really appreciate all of you who comment or just read and enjoy this blog. And to anyone who would rather disparage what I am doing, I ask that you perhaps just go do what you do best elsewhere. If you really want to know, I’m actually in it for the sushi.

Warren
The sushi guy.

Well my last entry seemed to have hit upon something as the resulting number of visits was nothing short of overwhelming. I had a small, core audience reading my blog for a while now, but I can’t thank everyone enough for the support and suggestions that have come in over the last few days.

I love sushi. Obviously. Apparently there are a heck of a lot of you out there who do as well. I’m no guru, just someone who happens to obsess over the things he likes, but I hope that I can continue to shed enough light on the world of sushi to keep everyone interested and coming back. I’m afraid now that I’ve set the bar too high

I hope to have another entry out this weekend, but being a holiday weekend I can’t promise anything. Generally I try for one enter per week, more often if I’m inspired and less often if I’m busy (my RL job keeps me fairly tied down so I’m amazed I can write here at all). I will also try to keep the entries as interesting as I can, I never tire of talking about sushi, but I don’t want to start repeating myself. But I am a sushi otaku after all….

Thanks again everyone who read and especially commented either publicly or in private email. Hearing from you all is what makes this whole blog worthwhile. Let’s all raise a glass of sake and say ‘kampai’ to ourselves and our mutual enjoyment of the delightful food that is sushi.

Cheers,
Warren
The sushi guy.

This article has been moved to the How to Eat Sushi page on The Sushi FAQ. Please follow the aforementioned link to an expanded version of this article.

I pretty much always go to a pure sushi-ya when I’m going out to eat sushi. If sushi is their core competency, then I know I’m probably in for a good meal. There are, however, Japanese steakhouses (the places with all the fancy foodwork at the table) that also have a sushi bar somewhere on premises. And I can’t say that I’m a big fan of the concept.

The one benefit of a sushi bar in a steakhouse is that, often enough, its not particularly busy and you may get an attentive itamae (chef). And sometimes the food is good. There was one in particular near where I lived a few years ago that was actually quite good. It wasn’t my number one choice, but I always knew I could get in and sit at the bar if my usual places were too full. The itamae was nice and the sushi was good. But I think I was lucky. I don’t mean to disparage the sushi bars at steakhouses, but in my overall experience, they have been sub par. Again, it’s not something they focus on and they may not do the volume of business necessary to keep their items in peak condition. They may not have a particularly diverse selection of items. No specials, no seasonal items. They also may not be able to hire a top itamae.

For high quality sushi I look for a restaurant that specializes in sushi. I don’t want my experience to feel tacked on to another one. That said, you might get lucky at a steakhouse (I have), but you also may not (and I have not). Sushi is something special, even if you eat it frequently, and deserves to be treated as an art, not just a meal. It is best appreciated, instead of being “also available,” lowering itself to merely a fad. I want my sushi to be more than adequate. I’m not convinced that the steakhouse sushi can be that. But if I’m not looking for sushi, I’ll definitely go to one for dinner and a show.

Warren
The Sushi Guy