In a newspaper column, a gourmet in Hong Kong cursed a local Japanese restaurant for offering salmon sushi at high prices. He wrote: Salmon is a problematic ingredient, with parasites present in the wild and antibiotics present in the farmed, which can also pollute the marine environment. Even Japanese people who dare to eat it keep a distance. If they see that salmon is the most popular sushi in Hong Kong, they probably scoff at it!

That gourmet friend has been to Japan many times and has visited many three-star restaurants, but he obviously has little understanding of the dietary life of the Japanese commoners. I will write an echo to him, adding a few viewpoints from the perspective of the granddaughter of Japanese people and sushi shop owners.

Firstly, when I grew up in Tokyo, I did not have salmon sushi in my childhood memories. At that time, the favorite sushi ingredients for Japanese children were tuna and squid, one red and one white. If they were added with yellow Yuzi Shao (scrambled eggs), it would look beautiful and taste delicious, needless to say. As for salmon, the Japanese originally referred to it as salmon. It is a freshwater fish that grows in the rivers of Hokkaido, in the Hokkaido Strait, and returns to its underground eggs during the breeding season. Due to the presence of parasites, it is not suitable for eating raw. Only salted roe is suitable for making seaweed rolls. Back then, it was also heard that the Ainu people, the indigenous people of Hokkaido, would freeze salmon meat and cut it into thin slices to eat. This way, it could kill parasites. Moreover, the freshly caught and processed goods were naturally very fresh. In contrast, hundreds of kilometers away in Tokyo, most of the people eat salt salted "salt salmon", which will be a good material for Rice and vegetable roll or tea cooked rice after being roasted in a gas stove. However, eating salmon raw is a taboo handed down by the ancestors, and no one dares to offend.

I remember in the late 1980s, when I returned to Japan from an overseas place of residence to visit my family, the sushi my father prepared for me did indeed contain salmon. He said, "This is not salmon from Hokkaido, but salmon that has recently been imported from Norway. Not only can it be eaten raw, but it is also fatter than tuna belly meat (toro)." I later learned that since around 1980, Norway has been exporting raw salmon to Japan. A fishing delegation sent by the government in 1974 discovered that Japan has a dietary habit of eating raw fish such as sashimi and sushi. However, local salmon cannot be eaten raw. If Norway could supply Atlantic salmon that is suitable for raw consumption, the potential market would be quite large. The "Japan Project" led by the Norwegian government's Ministry of Fisheries has been quite successful, causing Japanese people to think that local salmon and Atlantic salmon are two different things. The latter, because they are artificially bred in sterile fish ponds, has no parasites, and there is no need to be afraid of causing acute hepatitis. It is safe and delicious to eat. Almost simultaneously, Chile in South America also began breeding Atlantic salmon. Nowadays, Japan imports Norwegian goods for low-temperature refrigeration and Chilean goods for refrigerated transportation, with Norwegian products having higher prices and Chilean products having a higher market share.

In short, when asked Japanese children what kind of sushi they like the most today, the most common answer was salmon, which won the traditional sushi emperor tuna fat (Toro, second place) and sushi queen tuna lean meat (naked, third place). As for adults, women of all age groups and men under the age of 50 also say that they like to eat salmon sushi the most. So, salmon sushi is not only popular in Hong Kong, but also in Japan where everyone loves to eat salmon. As we all know, people in Chinese Mainland are also unwilling to lag behind. Since 2010, Norway has imported more advanced salmon than Japan, and more than 80% of them are eaten raw as sashimi or sushi materials.

Looking back on the years when I studied in China in the 1980s, local friends without exception shook their heads to express their incomprehensibility towards the Japanese habit of eating raw fish. In the blink of an eye, salmon became one of the standard products sold in supermarkets in Chinese cities. Who can not be influenced by the feeling of thirty years of Hedong and thirty years of Hexi? I remember during the Labor Day holiday in 1985, I was invited to a banquet hosted by local officials in Harbin to entertain Hong Kong businessmen. In addition to Maotai liquor, the table was also filled with delicacies such as camel's paws, a mushroom called monkey's head, and a whole salmon. The taste of that fish is very similar to the salmon produced in Hokkaido that I have been familiar with since I was young. It should have been caught in the Heilongjiang or Wusuli rivers. I believe none of the people present on that day could have anticipated that they would eat salmon raw in thirty years.

Among Chinese people, the first to start eating raw fish should be Taiwanese, followed by Hong Kong people. In the mid-1990s, during my stay in Hong Kong, sashimi and sushi were already popular varieties of hotel buffets. The most popular ones are salmon, followed by octopus and tuna (i.e. tuna); At that time, I estimated that the cheerful red color and soft taste had won recognition from Hong Kong people. In fact, it is Hong Kong people who translate English Salmon into salmon and English Tuna into tuna. On the contrary, Taiwanese people still use the traditional Japanese saying, not only referring to tuna as tuna, but also referring to salmon as salmon. Japanese people who have a taboo about eating salmon raw can only eat and fall in love with it after renaming it as salmon. Taiwanese people are pragmatic and refer to Japanese salmon as salmon, while Atlantic salmon is also known as Atlantic salmon.

Speaking of a Hong Kong gourmet friend, he often goes to Japan and frequents high-end restaurants, but he has never encountered salmon sashimi or sushi, because chefs in high-end Japanese restaurants must use domestic natural ingredients, such as tuna from Aomori Daima, snapper from Seto Inland Sea, Matsutake from Kyoto, and so on. In their opinion, artificially raised imported salmon is not a cheap commodity on the market. However, the lives of the common people are another matter; As long as it is safe, delicious, and reasonably priced, what's wrong with salmon produced in Norway and Chile? So, whether in Ginza or Shibuya, in the upper level sushi shops of department stores or in the lower level supermarkets, salmon sushi is placed in the middle, showcasing the imperial power. As for the additives such as antibiotics included in farmed fish, there have indeed been reports overseas questioning their safety in the past. However, every checkpoint where Japan imports breeding fish has an official quarantine office that conducts inspections according to Japanese standards, so it is generally believed that there is no problem. As an old Tokyo, I can at least guarantee that ordinary Japanese people have eaten salmon sushi and will never "sneer" at foreigners who love to eat salmon.

Aode Autec China Branch is a manufacturer that develops and produces rotary sushi equipment, rotary hot pot equipment, rotary conveying equipment, and sushi robots. We provide one-stop services including graphic design, VI design, and catering planning, as well as high-quality and diverse tableware, kitchenware, and supporting facilities.