Sushi: A Complete Guide to Every Type and Their History

Behind the cypress counter, the itamae presses a warm ball of rice into his palm, lays on a slice of tuna cut in a single stroke, then places the nigiri on the bare wood. This gesture, repeated millions of times daily across Japan, holds centuries of history.

Sushi is the most recognized Japanese dish in the world. Yet the slice of raw fish on vinegared rice most people picture is only a fraction of a far vaster universe, a story of permanent transformation from fish fermented in the ancient provinces to the starred counters of Tōkyō.

A Thousand-Year History: From Narezushi to Edo-Era Fast Food#

Narezushi: Preserving Fish Through Fermentation#

Narezushi is a fish preservation technique based on lactic fermentation. It originated in Southeast Asia and reached Japan between the third and fifth centuries CE, through southern China. Gutted, salted fish is wrapped in cooked rice, then pressed in a sealed container for months, sometimes over a year. The rice ferments and produces lactic acid, whose acidity preserves the fish while giving it a tangy, umami flavor.

The crucial detail: the rice is not eaten, serving only as a fermentation medium, discarded once the fish is ready. Narezushi is fermented fish, not "fish on rice." The method still exists: funazushi, a specialty of Shiga Prefecture on Lake Biwa, is its direct descendant. Made with the lake's funa carp (鮒) and fermented one to three years, it ranks among Japan's regional treasures, with prices reaching tens of thousands of yen.

From Namanare to Hayazushi: Speeding Up the Process#

Starting in the Muromachi era (1336-1573), the Japanese shortened fermentation. Namanare was sushi stopped earlier, while the rice was still edible: for the first time, people ate it along with the fish, and rice shifted from preservation tool to food in its own right.

Hayazushi, which appeared during the Edo period (1603-1868), added rice vinegar to cooked rice to reproduce the acidity that fermentation took months to develop. Sushi was ready in hours.

The first pressed sushi (oshi-zushi, 押し寿司) and boxed sushi (hako-zushi, 箱寿司) emerged, particularly in Kansai around Ōsaka: marinated or cooked fish over vinegared rice, pressed in a wooden mold, then cut. Battera, the Ōsaka pressed mackerel sushi, is a direct heir.

Hanaya Yohei and the Birth of Nigiri-zushi#

The turning point came in the 1820s in Edo, today's Tōkyō. Hanaya Yohei placed a slice of fish directly on a hand-shaped ball of vinegared rice. This nigiri-zushi, quick and easy to eat with the fingers, fit the culture of yatai, the street food stalls that fed Edo, then one of the largest cities in the world.

For lack of refrigeration, the fish was not yet raw: it was marinated in soy sauce (zuke, 漬け), cooked, grilled, or cured in vinegar. Bluefin tuna, today king of the counter, was considered second-rate; people preferred sea bream, cooked shrimp, grilled eel, or kohada (gizzard shad). Raw fish took its central role only in the twentieth century, with refrigeration and cold-chain transport.

Sushi was not born of abundance, but of necessity. Preserving fish, feeding a city, eating on the go between errands: every step of its history answered a concrete need, and that original simplicity is what makes it great.

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The Great Families of Sushi#

The word "sushi" refers to a family of preparations united by one common denominator: vinegared rice, known as shari or sumeshi. It is the rice, not the fish, that defines sushi: raw fish without rice is sashimi.

Nigiri-zushi: The Centerpiece of the Counter#

Nigiri-zushi is the most iconic form: an oval ball of vinegared rice (around twenty grams), hand-shaped, topped with a slice of fish or seafood called neta, sometimes with a dab of fresh wasabi. It is eaten in a single bite, fish side down.

Every nigiri is an exercise in balance: rice temperature (warm, never cold), shaping pressure, thickness of the cut, amount of wasabi. The itamae adjusts to each fish: fatty tuna (ōtoro, 大トロ) is not handled like amaebi shrimp (甘海老) or ika.

Maki-zushi: The Art of the Roll#

Maki-zushi wraps rice and filling in a sheet of toasted nori seaweed (海苔), rolled on a bamboo mat, the makisu. Several formats:

• Hosomaki: a single ingredient, cucumber (kappa maki, 河童巻き), tuna (tekka maki, 鉄火巻き), or pickled daikon (shinko maki). Often an interlude between two nigiri.
• Futomaki: several fillings (omelette, shiitake, kanpyō, shrimp, cucumber), cut into thick rounds. Served at celebrations, notably Setsubun in February, when people eat a whole futomaki facing the year's lucky direction, called ehōmaki.
• Uramaki places the rice outside and the nori within. A recent invention popularized in the United States, best known as the California roll.

Temaki: The Generous Hand Roll#

Temaki is a cone of nori stuffed with rice and filling, eaten with the fingers. At home temaki parties, each guest assembles their own cone from ingredients on the table.

Chirashi-zushi: The Festive Bowl#

Chirashi-zushi is a bowl of vinegared rice topped with arranged ingredients. The Edomae chirashi of Tōkyō features raw fish over the rice, close to sashimi on shari; the gomoku chirashi of Kansai mixes cooked and marinated ingredients (mushrooms, lotus root, omelette strips, shrimp) into the rice. Served for Hinamatsuri and major family occasions.

Oshi-zushi and Battera: The Pressed Sushi of Ōsaka#

Oshi-zushi is Kansai's tradition, predating Edo's nigiri: rice and fish layered in a rectangular wooden mold (oshibako, 押し箱), pressed, unmolded, and sliced. Battera is the most famous Ōsaka version: vinegar-marinated mackerel topped with a thin layer of kombu kelp (昆布), pressed onto rice.

Inari-zushi: The Sweetness of Fried Tofu#

Inari-zushi is a pouch of fried tofu (aburaage, 油揚げ) simmered in a sweet-salty broth of dashi, soy sauce, and mirin, then stuffed with vinegared rice. Its name refers to Inari, Shintō deity of rice and fertility, whose fox messengers are said to love fried tofu. A classic of bentō boxes and picnics.

Narezushi and Funazushi: Ancestors Still Alive#

The funazushi of Shiga remains a living witness to the original ancestor, with an acidic, umami complexity and cheesy notes reminiscent of aged Roquefort. Other regions have variants, like kaburazushi from Ishikawa, pairing fish with fermented turnip. These sushis recall that sushi was born of fermentation, not freshness.

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The Neta: A World of Fish and Toppings#

Neta refers to the topping over the rice. Its selection follows shun, the moment when an ingredient reaches its peak.

Maguro is the modern king of the counter, in three cuts: akami, lean red flesh; chūtoro, moderately fatty; ōtoro, the ultra-fatty belly. In January 2019, a 278-kilogram bluefin sold for 333.6 million yen (around 3 million US dollars) at the first Toyosu market auction, bought by restaurateur Kimura Kiyoshi of the Sushi Zanmai chain.

Sake is today the most popular neta in Japan, though virtually absent forty years ago. Norway introduced it: in the 1980s and 1990s, the Project Japan campaign convinced Japanese distributors to adopt farmed Atlantic salmon, fattier and milder than Pacific salmon.

Other classic neta: hamachi, hirame, aji, saba, ebi, amaebi, ika, tako, uni, ikura, tamago, and anago.

The techniques vary as much as the ingredients. Kobujime wraps fish in kombu to transfer the seaweed's umami. Zuke, a soak in soy sauce, gives amber color and depth. Aburi sears the surface with a flame, the caramelized exterior against the raw interior.

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The Shari: Rice, the Invisible Heart of Sushi#

If the neta catches the eye, it is the shari that makes the sushi. It represents 60 to 70 percent of a nigiri's volume, and its seasoning, temperature, and texture determine the eating experience.

The rice is a short-grain Japanese rice, like Koshihikari or Sasanishiki, sticky yet firm. After cooking, it is transferred into a large cypress tub, the hangiri, mixed with a seasoning of vinegar, sugar, and salt, and fanned to cool it and give it a pearly sheen.

Every restaurant guards its vinegar recipe (awasezu, 合わせ酢), and every itamae adjusts it by season: more vinegar in summer, milder in winter. Ideal shari sits at body temperature, 36 to 38 degrees Celsius: warm enough to release the aromas without cooking the fish.

Sushi is often judged by its fish. But a master itamae knows the real test is the rice. Mediocre neta on perfect shari still makes a decent sushi; exceptional neta on bad rice is a failure.

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The Itamae: Ten Years to Become a Master#

The itamae is the sushi chef, far more than a cook: a craftsman whose traditional training stretches across a decade or more, inherited from the Japanese artisan guilds.

The path begins with minarai: in the first years, the apprentice touches neither fish nor rice; he cleans, washes dishes, prepares secondary ingredients, and watches. Then he learns to cook and season the rice, roll maki. Only after several years does he cut fish, later still shape nigiri at the counter.

His knives are his most precious tools. The yanagiba, long and thin, slices fish in a single stroke. The deba, heavy and thick, fillets whole fish. The usuba is the vegetable knife. All are traditionally beveled on one side only (kataba, 片刃), for cleaner cuts demanding superior mastery.

The relationship with the customer at the counter (kauntā, カウンター) is essential to high-end sushi. At an omakase restaurant (お任せ, "I leave it up to you"), the customer entrusts the selection to the chef, who composes a menu in real time according to the day's catch and the season.

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The Art of Eating: Etiquette and Know-How#

Nigiri can be eaten with fingers or chopsticks, even in the most prestigious restaurants. You flip it to dip the neta in soy sauce, never the rice: shari would absorb too much and fall apart, masking the chef's seasoning. Gari, the vinegar-pickled ginger, is eaten between bites to cleanse the palate, not placed on the sushi. Wasabi is already placed by the itamae between rice and fish; adding more to the soy sauce is considered unnecessary in a quality restaurant.

The order of eating goes from lighter flavors (white fish, squid) to richer, more intense ones (fatty tuna, sea urchin), ending with tamago or a maki.

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From Kaiten-zushi to the World: Sushi Reinvented#

In everyday life, sushi is eaten in accessible forms. Kaiten-zushi, invented in 1958 by Shiraishi Yoshiaki in Ōsaka, circulates plates on a conveyor belt; the bill is calculated by the color and number of stacked plates. Chains like Sushirō, Kura Sushi, and Hama Sushi serve hundreds of millions of customers a year, with plates from 100 yen.

At the opposite end, Tōkyō's omakase restaurants reach the heights. The most famous, Sukiyabashi Jirō, run by Ono Jirō, became world-renowned through David Gelb's documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011): twenty seats, a fixed menu of about twenty nigiri served in thirty minutes, a price near 40,000 yen per person.

Sushi Outside Japan: Adaptation and Reinvention#

International expansion began in the 1960s and 1970s, with the first Japanese restaurants in the United States, particularly Los Angeles. The turning point was the California roll of the early 1970s, credited to chef Mashita Ichirō of the Tokyo Kaikan in Los Angeles (authorship disputed). By flipping the roll to hide the nori (uramaki) and replacing raw fish with avocado and crab (often imitation crab), he created a sushi accessible to Western palates.

The California roll opened the floodgates: the rainbow roll, dragon roll, spicy tuna roll, tempura-fried rolls, sushi drenched in mayo and teriyaki. In Brazil, the largest sushi-consuming country outside Asia thanks to its Japanese diaspora, chefs developed the hot roll (fried sushi) and combinations with cream cheese and mango. In France, takeaway chains turned maki into everyday supermarket and station fare.

These adaptations irritate purists but speak to the vitality of the concept. With its modular structure (rice plus topping), sushi is inherently adaptable, and even the boldest creations have introduced it worldwide, pushing millions to discover the traditional forms.

In 2013, washoku was inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list, recognizing the culinary philosophy for which sushi is the most visible ambassador. The inscription protects not a fixed recipe but a set of values: respect for seasonal ingredients, harmony of flavors, aesthetics of presentation, and the bond between food and nature.