2303: sushi Apr 6, 2021

'Sushi' is the name of a general type of dish usually made with seafood, rice, and seaweed, but only one of these things is the reason for the name. It is actually adopted from the Japanese 寿司すし (sushi) unsurprisingly, but this means specifically "sour rice”, possibly related to 酸すい (sui) meaning “sour; vinegared”. This is because it was originally made by covering fish in fermented rice, which would then just be throw away, but when vinegar was later added to speed up the process, the rice could be edible, and much like pie-crusts, what was once just a gross coating for cooking or storage purposes, it became an integral part of the dish. Seaweed was added only around the 19th century.