Sushi Archives - Page 3 of 3

Seaweed can help feed the world – but will we eat it?

November 2, 2015 — Let’s say you want to farm.

And let’s say there is a crop that requires you to plant and harvest, but do very little in between. It needs no fertilizing, no weeding, no watering, and it has very few enemies in the form of pests or disease. It gets all it needs from the environment around it and, under optimal conditions, can grow almost six inches a day. It’s healthful for people, and it actually leaves the environment better than it finds it.

That’s the case in favor of seaweed, and it’s a case that Charlie Yarish, a professor in the department of marine sciences at the University of Connecticut at Stamford, has been making for nigh on half a century. They call him “Captain Seaweed.” I visited his lab, and I’m a believer.

Yarish has spent decades doing the work that brings an interesting idea – let’s farm seaweed! – to the point where growers can start viable farms. There are some 3,500 kinds of seaweed, and figuring out which kind to grow, and where, and how, is a big job. The first rule? “Always grow a species native to the water you’re growing in,” says Yarish. Because some seaweeds are wildly invasive, that’s an important point.

One of the farmers who has taken advantage of Yarish’s research is Paul Dobbins. He’s a co-owner of Ocean Approved, a company that farms sugar kelp off the coast of Maine and sells it frozen, rather than dried. In a kind of busman’s holiday (I farm oysters), I went out with him to take a look at the kelp. It was early spring, and most of his crop had already been harvested, but he still had a line or two in the water. We pulled up to the buoy that marked a line, and he reached into the water.

What he pulled into the boat was a remarkable abundance of plant. Sugar kelp gives magic beanstalks a run for their money: It can grow from seedling to 15 feet over one winter. In the process, it cleans the water by removing some of the nutrients that can lead to algae blooms. Along with shellfish, kelp is one of the few farmed foods with a positive environmental impact.

And it doesn’t consume much in the way of resources. There’s the gas for the boat. There’s the labor in planting, harvesting and processing. And that’s about it.

There are a couple of ancillary non-environmental benefits. Most shellfish farming takes place from spring through early winter, so a crop that can grow from early winter through spring is an excellent complement; it can use both the space and the labor in the off-season.

Read the full story at Portland Press Herald

Why Freezing Didn’t Keep Sushi Tuna Safe From Salmonella

September 2, 2015 — A recent outbreak of Salmonella in frozen tuna might have sushi lovers wondering if it’s safe to eat that raw fish.

The outbreak in question began in California in March. All told, it sickened 65 people in 11 states. There were 35 cases in California, with another 18 in Arizona and New Mexico. The rest of the cases were scattered across the country, including four in Minnesota.

Most of the victims interviewed by public health investigators said they’d eaten sushi made with raw tuna in the week before they became ill. It was the Minnesota Department of Health that discovered the outbreak strains of Salmonella in some frozen raw tuna imported from Indonesia. The California importer, Osamu Corp., had shipped the frozen tuna to sushi restaurants and grocery stores that make sushi throughout the U.S.

In late August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the outbreak was over. But the agency warned that some of the recalled tuna might still be lurking in the freezers of restaurants uninformed about the outbreak, so people could still get sick.

Read the full story at New York Now

Can Boston’s Cult-Favorite Sushi Bar Cut It in New York?

August 25, 2015 — You know from that first bite of nigiri, a ripple of Japanese amberjack under pureed banana pepper, that you’ve arrived at the beginning of something good. The fish has been torched at the counter, and it’s glossy with melted butter. The rice is this close to falling apart in your fingers. It’s simply composed, but every element—fish, pepper, rice—is on the same level, warm and mellow and soft around the edges, like three friends who’ve been smoking from the same pipe all afternoon.

Boston-based restaurateurs Tim and Nancy Cushman opened their sushi bar O Ya in South Boston back in 2007. A year later, then-New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni declared it one of the best new restaurants in the country. Some dishes the Cushmans served back then have made it over to their new location, which opened a couple of months ago in Manhattan’s Curry Hill; the bare, sliced chanterelles and shiitake mushrooms under a sesame-flavored froth, for example, are still slick with a beloved rosemary-garlic oil.

Read the full story at Bloomberg Business

Why Eating Fresh, Just-Caught Fish May Be a Thing of the Past

July 29, 2015 — What would you think if your raw sushi had actually been frozen for 15 hours or more before you ate it? If the Food and Drug Administration has its way, that’s how all uncooked fish in the U.S. will be treated.

For several years, the FDA has recommended that any fish that’s served in sushi, crudo, or ceviche be frozen for at least 15 hours or longer in order to kill potential parasites. But since the FDA leaves it to local health departments to enforce the recommendation, few cities actually follow it — until now.

Recently, New York City’s Department of Health decided to enforce the policy and other cities may follow suit. Many cities and states, with the notable exception of California, which has a state code that allows raw fish, have the FDA’s recommendation on the books, but enforcement is patchy.

So what exactly happens to fish when it’s flash frozen?

In Japan, super-freezing tuna has been commonplace for the last 15 years, according to Mike Kanter, the seafood merchant for FreshDirect, a large online grocer in New York City. Fish are flash frozen to negative 76° F within hours of being caught — sometimes while still on the boat. Sushi kitchens in Japan are often decked out with mini super freezers that keep the fish at the same arctic temperatures until it’s ready to serve.

Read the full story at Yahoo Food

European Food Chain Yo! Sushi Plans US Expansion

July 7, 2015 — London-based Yo! Sushi is hoping to make it big in the U.S.

Yo! Sushi, which has 87 units, mostly in the United Kingdom, is in the early stages of its U.S. expansion, with locations in New Jersey and Florida, another three in the works, and plans to take its fast-casual restaurants up and down the East Coast.

“I think if Brits are ready for sushi, Americans are definitely ready,” said Alison Vickers, Yo! Sushi director of development.

Yo! Sushi is aware of those challenges. But it also noted chains have found success recently, such as South African concept Nando’s Peri-Peri, and fellow British chain Pret A Manger.

“But it is the best restaurant market in the world,” Vickers said of the U.S. “We’ve had luck with the first locations. We’ve done a lot of research.”

Research has focused on the market for sushi, an increasingly popular item in the U.S., particularly with younger consumers. Sushi is now ubiquitous, available everywhere from grocery store kiosks to upscale restaurants. But Yo! Sushi aims to fill what it sees as a hole in the U.S. market.

Read the full story at Nation’s Restaurant News