If you’ve ever been to a sushi restaurant in America, then you’re probably well accustomed to the colorful array of sushi options pictured on the menu. From rainbow rolls to volcano rolls, and from California rolls to Philadelphia rolls, America seems to have really found a way to make this staple Japanese dish its own.
Food doesn’t always get the credit it deserves for fostering cultural understanding. Though the Internet has made cultural exchange practically seamless these days, food has always been one of the most common mediums people use to express and exchange culture. By simply eating at a foreign restaurant, we can (literally) taste another part of the world, and that’s pretty cool.
But let’s be honest. American style sushi contains so many sauces and additional ingredients that it’s easy to forget what sushi is at its core—raw fish and rice. When is the last time you ordered sushi because you love the taste of raw fish? In fact, a number of sushi rolls available in American restaurants don’t contain raw fish at all. In light of all this, has the Western world done an injustice to Japanese culture by drifting too far from sushi’s origins? Perhaps.
But no matter how many sushi restaurants continue to pop up around the US, sushi will always belong to Japan. And if that’s the case, then Japanese people must be the most qualified to critique sushi rolls from around the world, right? That’s what we hoped, at least, when we decided to hit the streets of Tokyo and ask locals to give their honest assessment of a few American style sushi rolls.
One could say that a few of our interviewees were left speechless just at the sight of these dishes (which many refuse to call ‘sushi’). But facial expressions speak louder than words, which is one of the many reasons why we conduct street interviews rather than written surveys. So, check out this video, and let us know what you think below!
