99 Fun Facts About Sushi Trivia for Kids

Which word do people in Japan say just before they start eating a meal?

Itadakimasu means 'I humbly receive', and it thanks everyone behind the meal, from the farmers and cooks to the plants and animals that became the food.

Sushi rice is seasoned with sugar, salt and which liquid?

Vinegar gives the rice its tang, and that seasoned rice, not raw fish, is what makes a dish sushi, so a roll with no fish in it still counts.

The word 'sushi' probably comes from an old word meaning what?

Sour-tasting is the likely root, describing the tang of the dish, so the name never meant raw fish and a roll with no fish in it is still sushi.

Thin slices of raw fish served WITHOUT rice are called what?

Sashimi is the fish on its own, while sushi is defined by its seasoned rice, which is why a slice of raw tuna with nothing under it is never sushi.

Edo, where nigiri sushi first became popular, is the old name of which Japanese city?

Tokyo got its new name, meaning 'eastern capital', in 1868, when the emperor moved there from Kyoto, and sushi made the old way is still called Edo-style.

Nori sheets are made using a drying process that is most like making what?

Paper-makers showed the way: in old Edo, people began shredding nori, pouring it onto screens and drying it into thin flat sheets with the same technique used for Japanese paper.

Which kind of rice do sushi chefs use?

Short and sticky grains cling together, so a mound or a roll keeps its shape, while long-grain rice such as jasmine will not hold and the sushi falls to bits.

In Japan, standing chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice is rude because it is done at which ceremonies?

Funerals are where a bowl of rice with chopsticks standing in it is offered to the dead, so doing the same at dinner looks like very bad luck.

Many restaurants in Japan show sushi and other dishes in the window using what?

Lifelike plastic models do the job of a menu, showing each dish before you order, and the first ones were cast in wax about a hundred years ago.

Most of the spicy paste served with sushi outside Japan is really made from what?

Dyed horseradish, mixed with mustard, stands in because the real wasabi plant is so fussy that experts call it the hardest plant in the world to farm.

What is the pink stuff on the side of a sushi plate?

Pickled ginger, called gari, is nibbled between pieces of sushi to freshen your tongue for the next one, and very young ginger turns pink by itself as it pickles.

Which salty brown liquid do people dip sushi into?

Soy sauce should only touch the topping: chefs say to tip the piece over as you dip, because rice dunked in the sauce soaks up too much and crumbles.

Which soft white food is cut into little cubes and floated in miso soup?

Tofu is made rather like cheese: the milky juice of crushed beans is curdled and the curds are squeezed into blocks, which is why it is also called bean curd.

Besides chopsticks, which is a polite way to eat a piece of nigiri sushi in Japan?

With your fingers is the traditional way, even at smart sushi counters: you wipe your hands on the wet towel each diner is given, then pick the piece up.

Which country did chopsticks come from originally?

China is where chopsticks began more than 3,000 years ago, and the earliest ones were kitchen tools for cooking, long before anyone used them to eat.

How does a sushi chef shape the little mound of rice under a piece of nigiri?

Presses it by hand is right, and the word nigiri even means 'gripped', though in budget chains a robot now squeezes out thousands of rice mounds an hour instead.

Wasabi belongs to the same plant family as which of these vegetables?

Broccoli, cabbage and mustard are all cousins of wasabi, and the family's sharp mustard oils are why wasabi stings your nose instead of burning your tongue like chilli.

What is the little bamboo mat used for rolling sushi called?

A makisu is woven from thin bamboo strips and cotton string, and cooks also use it to squeeze water out of vegetables and to shape rolled omelettes.

Temaki, a sushi 'hand roll', is wrapped into which shape?

A cone needs no rolling mat, so families in Japan lay out rice, nori and fillings and everyone wraps their own at the table.

Kappamaki rolls are filled with which crunchy vegetables, the favourite food of a water goblin called the kappa?

Cucumbers are the kappa's favourite food in old stories, and people still leave them out as offerings at festivals to stay on the river goblin's good side.

Which Japanese word is used around the world for the savoury 'fifth taste' of rich, meaty broths?

Umami was named in 1908 by a Japanese chemist, Kikunae Ikeda, who tracked the savoury taste of kelp broth down to a single substance; amami and nigami just mean sweetness and bitterness.

A California roll is usually filled with cucumber, avocado and what?

The very first ones used real crab. The 'crab sticks' used now are made of mashed white fish shaped to look like crab.

The orange-and-white 'crab sticks' sold in supermarkets are really made from what?

Mashed fish paste, called surimi, is usually pollock ground smooth, shaped into sticks and coloured on the outside to look like crab leg, and most brands contain no crab meat at all.

A Philadelphia roll is usually filled with smoked salmon, cucumber and which soft ingredient?

Cream cheese, which shares the Philadelphia name with a famous American brand, marks this roll as one made for American tastes, right down to the rice on the outside hiding the nori.

Which fish did Norway persuade Japan to start eating raw on sushi in the 1980s?

Salmon caught wild can carry worms, so Japan always cooked it, until Norway's fish farmers, with more salmon than they could sell, sent a sales team in the 1980s to prove theirs was safe raw.

How is unagi, the freshwater eel served on sushi, usually cooked?

Grilled with a sweet glaze is the style called kabayaki, and eel is never served raw because its blood is toxic to people until cooking breaks the toxin down.

Which is the most prized and expensive part of a tuna for sushi?

Fatty belly, or toro, was once so unwanted in Japan that it was nicknamed 'cat-stepper', a fish even a cat would walk past, and most of it was thrown away or canned.

On a sushi menu, tamago is a yellow topping made from what?

Egg is what tamago means, and the topping is an omelette built by rolling up one thin layer after another in a rectangular pan, sweetened with sugar the way eastern Japan likes it.

Inarizushi, rice in a pouch of fried tofu, is named after a god whose messengers are which animals?

Foxes are said to love fried tofu, which is why it wraps this sushi, and in some regions the pouches are made with pointed corners like a fox's ears.

Sushi rice served in a bowl with toppings scattered on top is called what?

Chirashi means 'scattered', and because nothing has to be rolled or shaped it is the sushi families make at home for festivals such as Girls' Day in March.

Japanese rice balls wrapped in nori, often triangle-shaped and eaten as a snack, are called what?

Onigiri are not sushi at all, because the rice is plain or lightly salted instead of seasoned, and they began as a handy way to carry leftover rice around.

Nigiri sushi was a hit in 1820s Edo because it was an early kind of what?

Fast food is what it was: chef Hanaya Yohei is credited with inventing it, and busy townspeople ate the pieces standing at street stalls, each said to be two or three times the size of today's.

What gave Yoshiaki Shiraishi the idea for the sushi conveyor belt, which he launched in 1958?

Bottles in a beer factory rolled past him on a belt, and Shiraishi, who could not find enough staff for his small restaurant, saw a way for the plates to serve themselves.

At a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, how is the bill usually worked out?

Counting the empty plates is all it takes, and some chains have you post each finished plate down a slot in the table, which adds them up for you.

Which drink is almost always served with sushi in Japan?

Green tea is usually free at sushi restaurants, and at the cheaper ones you make it yourself from a pot of tea powder kept on the table.

Which small green pods of young beans are a popular snack at sushi restaurants?

Edamame means 'branch beans', because the pods were picked and sold still clinging to their stalks; you squeeze the beans out with your teeth and leave the pod.

Miso soup, often served with sushi, is flavoured with a paste made from what?

Fermented soybeans are mashed with salt and a helpful mould, then left to age into miso, the paste that is stirred into a broth called dashi to make the soup.

Tempura was brought to Japan by people from which country?

Portugal's sailors and missionaries reached Japan in the 1500s and showed cooks in Nagasaki how to fry food in a flour batter, which the Japanese made their own.

Why is fugu, the Japanese pufferfish dish, dangerous to eat?

Its insides contain a deadly poison, strongest in organs like the liver, so only licensed cooks may prepare it and selling an uncleaned pufferfish to the public is against the law.

Which Japanese lunchbox with rice and little compartments is sometimes decorated to look like cartoon characters?

A bento decorated like this is called a kyaraben, and parents first shaped the food into characters to tempt fussy children into eating everything in the box.

Which lucky animal statue, one paw raised, beckons customers into many restaurants and shops in Japan?

A cat with a raised paw is a maneki-neko, or 'beckoning cat', and its paw points palm-down because that is how people in Japan wave someone over.

Gunkanmaki sushi has a tall nori wall to do what?

Hold loose toppings like fish eggs, which would tumble off ordinary nigiri: a sushi chef invented the nori wall in 1941, and soft toppings have been on the sushi menu ever since.

Sushi bars are a common sight in which South American country, home to the largest Japanese community outside Japan?

Brazil took in its first shipload of Japanese workers in 1908, bound for the coffee farms, and about two million of their descendants live there today.

How is miso soup, a regular side dish with sushi, traditionally drunk in Japan?

Straight from the bowl is correct: you lift it and sip as if it were a cup, then pick out the solid bits with your chopsticks.

Where does the wasabi plant grow naturally in Japan?

Along mountain stream beds the plant gets the cool, clear running water it needs, which is why wasabi farms are built as gravel beds with spring water flowing through them.

Long ago, the very first sushi was invented as a way to do what with fish?

Keep it from going bad was the whole point: the fish was salted and packed in cooked rice for months, and when it was ready the rice was thrown away, not eaten.

Scientists won a funny science prize in 2011 for a wasabi-smell alarm designed to wake up whom?

Deaf people cannot hear a smoke alarm, so this one sprays a puff of wasabi into the air instead, because the sting in the nose is enough to wake a sleeper.

In which Californian city is the first sushi shop in the United States said to have opened, in 1906?

Los Angeles had a growing Japanese quarter, where families who had crossed the Pacific opened a noodle shop, then a tempura shop and, in 1906, a sushi shop.

The roe inside funazushi, an ancient sushi that takes many months to make, is said to smell like which food?

Cheese is the usual comparison: the fish, a carp from Lake Biwa, is salted for months and then left to ferment in cooked rice, where the same kind of bacteria that turn milk into yoghurt go to work.

On the festival of Setsubun, people eat a whole uncut sushi roll while doing what?

Facing a lucky direction, which changes every year, people eat the whole roll to wish for a good year, a custom from the Kansai region that spread nationwide once convenience stores began selling the rolls.

The ehōmaki roll of Setsubun is traditionally eaten in what way?

Silently is the rule: eating the roll without a word is said to make a wish come true, and its fillings traditionally number seven, one for each of the Seven Gods of Fortune.

Pressed 'box sushi' made in a wooden mould is a speciality of which Japanese city?

Osaka cooks line a wooden box called an oshibako with the toppings, cover them with rice, press the lid down hard and then cut the block into neat bites.

In Nara, pressed sushi called kakinoha-zushi is wrapped in the leaves of which fruit tree, known in Japan as kaki?

Persimmon leaves wrap small blocks of rice and salted mackerel; in one telling, coastal fishermen carried the salted fish over the mountains to Nara's inland villages, where it became a festival treat.

Fish-in-rice sushi probably began in the rivers of which region, long before Japan?

Southeast Asia is the likely birthplace, perhaps along the Mekong River, and the idea travelled north through China, where it was first written down, before it ever reached Japan.

Gunkanmaki, sushi with a tall wall of nori around the rice, is named for what kind of ship?

Warship is what 'gunkan' means: seen from the side, the dark band of nori looks like a ship's steel hull, with the topping piled on deck.

Temarizushi, named after a toy, is made by pressing rice and fish into which shape?

A ball is the shape of a temari, a toy once wound from scraps of old kimono, and home cooks get the same round shape by twisting the rice and fish tightly in cling film.

Futomaki, a sushi roll with several fillings, has a name meaning what?

Fat roll is right: it is thick enough to take several fillings at once, and cooks choose ones whose tastes and colours go well together in every slice.

Japanese table manners say a piece of nigiri sushi should be finished in what way?

In one bite is the rule, because a piece bitten in half usually falls apart and spoils the chef's careful work, which is why each one is made mouth-sized.

In one popular story, tekkamaki tuna rolls began as a quick snack for people busy doing what?

Gambling dens were called tekkaba, and in this telling the roll let players eat with one hand without leaving the game; another story says the red tuna simply looked like red-hot iron.

The Japanese word ikura, for salmon caviar, was borrowed from which language?

Russian 'ikra' means fish eggs of every kind, black caviar included, but in Japan the borrowed word narrowed to mean only these big orange eggs.

Crunchy orange tobiko on sushi rolls is the eggs of which sea animal?

Flying fish lay the eggs, and the fish earn their name by bursting out of the water and gliding above the waves on wing-like fins to escape hunters such as tuna.

Uni, the creamy orange sushi topping, comes from which spiky animal?

Sea urchin looks like nothing but spikes, yet almost all of it is thrown away: the only part eaten is a few soft orange lobes inside, the organs that make its eggs.

Ekiben, boxed meals such as Toyama's famous pressed trout sushi, are sold where in Japan?

At railway stations is right, since 'eki' means station, and many stations have become famous for a box built around the local speciality.

Tako, the octopus served on sushi, is famous for having how many hearts?

Three hearts share the work: two push blood through the gills and the third sends it round the rest of the body.

On a sushi menu, 'ika' is which sea creature?

Squid is ika, and like its cousin the octopus it can squirt a cloud of dark ink to cover its escape from a hunter.

What is 'ebi' on a sushi menu?

Shrimp is ebi, and it usually reaches the sushi counter already boiled, while its northern cousin amaebi, the 'sweet shrimp', is one of the kinds served raw.

In Japan, the yellowtail is known for doing what as it grows?

Getting a new name at each size makes it a 'promotion fish', like a worker rising through the ranks: it is mojako as a tiny fry and buri when fully grown, with names such as hamachi in between.

On Japan's midsummer Day of the Ox, people beat the heat by eating which long, slippery fish?

Eel on the Day of the Ox is a custom from the Edo period, when rich, oily eel was thought to give people the strength to get through the hottest days of the year.

Unlike most fish, tuna are able to do which of these?

Keep their bodies warm is right: a net of blood vessels traps the heat made by their swimming muscles, so a tuna can hunt in cold water without slowing down.

In 2019, how much did a sushi boss pay for one tuna at the first Toyosu market auction of the year?

333.6 million yen, about three million US dollars, was the winning bid at the first New Year auction held in the brand-new Toyosu market, yet the buyer, Kiyoshi Kimura, served the fish at his restaurants' usual prices.

Conveyor belt sushi restaurants are also known in English as a 'sushi' what?

Train is the nickname, and it fits: some restaurants send orders out on miniature train cars, and Japanese chains have added express lanes named after the bullet train.

At a conveyor belt sushi bar, what does the colour or pattern of a plate tell you?

Its price is coded into the plate, so a plain one might cost 100 yen and a fancy one five times as much, though some chains skip the code and charge the same for every plate.

What happens to a plate that circles a sushi conveyor belt for too long?

It is automatically removed: many chains tag each plate with a chip or code that records when it set off, and a machine removes it once its time is up.

At Kura Sushi, what can happen when you post empty plates into a slot at your table?

You might win a prize: the plates set off a little cartoon on your screen, and a lucky one drops out a toy, while the slot carries the dirty plates off to be washed.

The British conveyor belt chain Yo Sushi opened its first restaurant in 1997 in which city?

London's Soho got the first branch in 1997, opened by Simon Woodroffe, who had spent years designing stage sets for rock stars before he turned to sushi.

In which 2003 spy comedy does the hero get his tie stuck in a sushi conveyor belt?

Johnny English began life in 1990s British credit-card adverts, where Rowan Atkinson played a bungling secret agent, and the film gave that clumsy spy a new name and a big-screen mission.

Giant tuna are carved up for sushi with a special knife whose blade can be up to how long?

150 centimetres of blade takes two workers to handle on the biggest tuna knives: one grips the handle while the other holds the far end, with a cloth wrapped round the blade to protect the hands.

Which US state is famous for Spam musubi, a block of rice topped with grilled Spam?

Hawaii took to Spam during the Second World War, when the tinned meat fed the troops based there, and islanders of Japanese descent gave it the rice-and-nori treatment.

Korean gimbap rolls look like sushi, but their rice is seasoned with which oil?

Sesame oil gives gimbap rice a nutty taste in place of sushi's tang, and the fillings are different too: cooked meat and vegetables, never raw fish.

Why do packs of nori come with a small sachet tucked inside?

To keep the sheets dry: nori drinks in water from the air so readily that sheets left out soon turn limp and lose their snap.

How is nori farmed?

On nets near the surface the nori sprouts from spores in autumn and is harvested through the winter by farmers working from boats.

British scientist Kathleen Drew-Baker, who saved Japan's nori farms, is honoured there as 'Mother of the' what?

Sea is the word: in 1949 she showed that nori spends the summer hidden as tiny threads inside old seashells, and Japanese scientists used the discovery to revive the country's failing harvests.

More than 1,300 years ago, nori was so valued in Japan that people could use it to pay what?

Their taxes: a law code of 701 listed nori among the goods that could be handed over as tax, and Japan still marks Nori Day on 6 February in memory of it.

Traditionally, fresh wasabi is grated on a board covered with the skin of which animal?

Shark skin is rough with tiny, tightly packed points, so it grinds the wasabi far more finely than an ordinary grater and gives a smooth, creamy paste.

Where does a sushi chef usually put the wasabi in nigiri?

Between the fish and the rice the wasabi is sealed away from the air, which matters because freshly grated wasabi loses its kick within minutes.

Why are the fields at Daio, one of Japan's largest wasabi farms, covered with black cloth each summer?

To shade the plants: wasabi cannot stand direct sunlight, so the farm drapes its fields in black netting from spring to autumn while cold spring water runs between the rows.

Why did expert diners once order the egg sushi first at a new restaurant?

To judge the chef's skill, since every sushi bar once made its own rolled omelette; today many buy theirs ready-made, so the old test no longer works.

A sushi chef is called an itamae, which literally means 'in front of the' what?

Cutting board is the 'ita' in itamae, and the place in front of it has to be earned: an apprentice spends years working up to wakiita, 'beside the board', first.

If you order 'omakase' at a sushi bar, what are you asking for?

The chef picks for you: the word means 'I leave it to you', and you are served whatever the chef judges best that day, often dishes that are not on the menu at all.

Which US president ate at Jiro Ono's sushi bar with Japan's prime minister?

Barack Obama called it the best sushi he had ever eaten, his host said afterwards, although reports disagree on whether he finished everything put in front of him.

Jiro Ono's famous restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro has how many seats?

10 seats along a single counter are all it has, yet the tiny place held three Michelin stars, the guide's top rating, for more than ten years.

Sushi chefs slice raw fish with a long, thin knife called a yanagiba, named after which slender-leaved tree?

Willow is 'yanagi', and the blade is long for a reason: the chef draws it through the fish in one smooth pull instead of sawing, which leaves each slice glossy and neat.

The pile of thin white strands served under slices of raw fish is usually shredded what?

Daikon radish, a giant white root, is shaved into long thin strands, and the garnish is there to be eaten too: it is said to freshen the mouth and help digestion.

The green plastic 'grass' in takeaway sushi boxes is a copy of what?

Real cut leaves were the original dividers, there to stop the flavours of neighbouring pieces from mixing, and top sushi chefs still carve fresh leaves into fancy shapes with a knife.

Compared with Chinese chopsticks, the tips of Japanese chopsticks are usually what?

Sharp and pointed tips suit a country that eats so much fish, because they make it easier to pick the flesh away from fine bones, while Chinese chopsticks tend to end blunt.

What must you do first with a pair of disposable Japanese waribashi chopsticks?

Snap them apart: the two sticks come joined because the wood is only partly cut through, and the unbroken join shows that nobody has used the pair before.

In the United States, most fish served raw in sushi is first what, to kill parasites?

Frozen solid is what American food-safety guidance calls for, because deep cold kills the tiny worms that can live in fish, so much 'fresh' sushi fish has in fact been in the freezer.

A 'caterpillar roll' gets its bumpy green look from thin slices of what on top?

Avocado is laid over an inside-out roll in overlapping slices until it looks like a plump green caterpillar, and like the California roll it was dreamed up in North America, not Japan.

A rainbow roll is an inside-out roll topped with what to give it many colours?

Slices of different fish, such as red tuna and pale yellowtail, are draped in stripes over a California roll, so every piece comes out a different colour.