April 22, 2012 – For those on the go or on a budget, sushi is sold at food courts and supermarkets. Sales of sushi trays were up 11 percent in the United States in 2011, according to Nielsen Perishables Group FreshFacts data. AFC Franchise Corp., one of the largest suppliers of supermarket sushi, now operates more than 3,300 sushi bars in the United States and Canada. Soon enough, sushi will be available at drugstores, too. Walgreens recently announced plans for a 24,000-square-foot megastore in Downtown Crossing that will feature a sushi bar.
But just because sushi is everywhere in Boston doesn’t mean it’s good.
“ ‘Where should I go for the best sushi?’ I’m asked this question a lot,’’ says Merry White, a professor of anthropology at Boston University who specializes in food and Japan. “I have a snarky answer. Go to Logan and get on a plane. But that’s not helpful.’’
The highest-quality sushi relies on expensive, high-quality ingredients, and few of them. Key is rice, without which raw fish is sashimi, not sushi.
“Sushi in its basic form means vinegared rice,’’ says chef Tim Cushman, who runs acclaimed Japanese restaurant O Ya with his wife, sake sommelier Nancy Cushman. They serve creative sushi and sashimi, along with cooked dishes, but one can also request traditional preparations. “For great sushi, you need great sushi rice, and to make it you need premium rice… . Then you have to cook it properly, hold it properly, and serve it properly. You should never refrigerate it. The texture gets hard and grainy.’’ Cushman spent several years developing the rice served at O Ya.
Read the full story at the Boston Globe.