Sushi Essentials: The Two Pillars: Shari and Neta

The genesis of sushi has nothing to do with fancy restaurants; it was an ingenious method of food preservation. The earliest form of sushi, called Narezushi, originated not in Japan, but along the Mekong River in Southeast Asia—likely in what is now modern-day China—before traveling to Japan around the Nara period (8th century).

• Narezushi involved packing cleaned, salted fish into cooked rice and letting it ferment for months. The fermentation process, caused by the rice, preserved the fish, allowing it to be stored for up to a year. Critically, the rice was always discarded and only the fish was eaten. This process gave the fish a strong, sharp, funky flavor.

Over centuries in Japan, this technique evolved. By the Muromachi period (14th-16th centuries), people began eating the fish while the rice was only partially fermented (Namazushi), making the process much faster.

The final, revolutionary step came during the Edo period (17th–19th centuries) in Osaka and then Tokyo (then called Edo). Chefs began mixing vinegar into the rice, which helped preserve it, imparted a pleasant flavor, and sped up the process even more. Suddenly, the rice—the shari—was no longer just a preservative; it became an essential ingredient, eaten along with the fish. This marks the birth of modern sushi.