Seven little films. A thousand years.

01

More than 1,000 years ago

It began as a way to keep fish

Sushi began in Southeast Asia and came to Japan with rice farming. It was preserved fish, packed in rice and left to ferment for months. The rice was thrown away, and the word sushi simply means “sour”. You can still taste this ancestor by Lake Biwa, where it is called funazushi.

02

The 1820s, Edo

Edo invents fast food

In Edo, the city we now call Tokyo, street stalls began pressing fresh fish onto vinegared rice. People say a cook called Hanaya Yohei made it famous. No waiting, no chopsticks, eaten standing. Each piece was two or three times the size of today’s.

On your morningYou press your own, one piece at a time.

03

Edo’s rice

The rice was red

Edo’s sushi rice was not white. A cheap, rich vinegar made from sake lees came to the city by ship and turned the rice a warm brown-red. White rice vinegar took over later, because some people thought brown rice looked spoiled. Now red rice is back in fashion.

On your morningTaste red-vinegar rice and white, side by side.

04

Before refrigerators

Wasabi, the green bodyguard

In a city with no refrigerators, people trusted wasabi to keep raw fish fresh and to hide the smell. Real wasabi is a root that loves cold, clean mountain water, grated just before eating. Most tubes are mainly horseradish.

On your morningGrate a fresh root and compare it with a tube.

05

Edo to today

The tuna nobody wanted

In old Edo, tuna was a cheap fish, and proud townspeople looked down on it. The lean part was soaked in soy sauce to keep, and the fatty belly spoiled so fast that nobody wanted it. Refrigeration changed everything.

On your morningChoose the day’s tuna with the chef at the market.

06

1958

Sushi takes a ride

In 1958, a restaurant owner in Osaka put sushi on a conveyor belt. The story goes that he got the idea from beer bottles moving through a brewery. At the Osaka World Expo in 1970, the whole world took notice. Then sushi crossed the Pacific, met the avocado, and travelled everywhere.

07

1923, 1935, today

Tsukiji, where the morning starts

For about three hundred years, Tokyo’s fish market stood by Nihonbashi bridge. The great earthquake of 1923 destroyed it, and a new market opened in Tsukiji in 1935. The auctions moved to Toyosu in 2018, but more than four hundred shops still fill the lanes, and they wake up early.

On your morningThis is where we meet.