Sushi: Not "Raw Fish" and Deep Fryers are Scarier

Looking for a healthier alternative to Lent’s Friday fish fry? Sushi is bright, fresh and there are no boiling hydrogenated oils involved. And one entré tallies about one-half of the calories of a typical fish fry dinner. Here are a few more facts about this fish dish:

• Today’s sushi (literally “sour tasting”) predecessor is about 1,000 years old—fermenting fish wrapped in rice. When the fish broke down the rice would be discarded and the fish eaten. In the 14th century vinegar was added to the rice mixture to improve the sour flavor and to help preserve the fish. Our version started as a fast food in the early 1800s that could be eaten with the hands rather than chopsticks. The first sushi sold in the United States was in Los Angeles in 1966. 

• Vinegared rice is the common ingredient to all sushi, and this can be white, brown or black rice. Otherwise, sushi is made with different types of fish and seafood that can be raw or cooked, or it can be vegetarian. In fact there are at least 100 kinds of sushi sold in Japan. 

• “Nori” is the seaweed used for wrapping the rice and other sushi ingredients, originally harvested by scraping it off the docks. Not to worry--it's farmed properly today. The traditional style roll is called a “makimono.” When Western culture became interested in sushi, the “uramaki,” or “inside-out roll,” developed wrapping the nori on the inside of the roll with a coating of rice on the outside, often rolled in sesame seeds.

• “Nigirizushi” is rice formed into a small block with a strip of raw fish spread over the top. “Makizushi” is the well-known rolled sushi wrapped in nori. It is cut into 6-8 pieces for one order. 

• Calorie counts vary for sushi, but according to FatSecret.com’s handy chart, one piece ranges from around 25 calories for cucumber to 90 calories for sea eel. Smoked salmon pieces average 68 calories each with 5 grams of protein per piece. A full entrée may include 9-12 pieces. A common fish fry dinner with battered fish, tartar sauce, fries, cole slaw and roll weighs in at an easy 1,100 calories and about half of them from fat.   

• The record for the largest sushi roll created goes to the residents of Kesennuma, Japan, a city hit by the 2011 tsunami. In 2014 1,300 people used 1,700 sheet of seaweed to make a roll measuring .2 mile long with 188 pounds of tuna and 1,213 pounds of rice.