What to drink with your sushi.
By Ross A. Christensen
 

The question of what is appropriate to drink with your sushi comes up quite frequently, and I can see the reason for the confusion.  The French are quite picky about what kind of wine to drink with their snails and frogs, and if you ask a German what kind of beer to drink with lunch I hope you’re sitting down.  Since Americans tend to perceive the Japanese as very pedantic, we imagine they must have an entire encyclopedia about drinking with sushi.

Actually, not so much…

The Japanese really are not very particular about what to drink at the sushi bar.   But since folks seem to want some guidance, I will give you my opinions and explanations.

Sake  (SAH-kay)
Is there anything more associated with the Japanese than sushi and sake (aside from weird animation)?  I personally love sake and drink far too much of it, so it might be a bit of a surprise if I tell you to stay away from it when eating sushi.  There was a time when the Japanese thought that sushi and sake were destined for each other, but more recently these items have fallen from each others graces.  The reason for this can be compared to pairing wine and grapes together.  The right grapes go well with the right wine, but eating green grapes with a red wine just doesn’t taste right and it ruins them both.  Some people feel it’s the same principle with the rice in the sushi and the rice in the sake: if you don’t match them up just right you can ruin them both.  I don’t subscribe to that philosophy as much as I just think that sake is too strong a drink for the delicate taste of sushi.  I compare it to drinking moonshine with your peanut butter and jelly sandwich (my apologies to the rednecks reading this saying “Hay, He’s criticizin’ mah breakfast!”).  Sake is a great thing for the occasional shot to toast with your friends while screaming “KANPAI” (the Japanese word for “cheers” but it literally translates to “dry cup” meaning “drink until there is nothing left in your glass”), but for a beverage to drink alongside your sushi, leave the sake out.

For those of you who haven’t tried sake and wonder what it tastes like, I generally tell people this: “Wine tastes like grapes intensified a thousand times, and sake tastes like rice intensified a thousand times.” So the question is, how much do you like rice?  Sake brewers are now coming out with sakes that are gentler to the western palate.  Gekkeikan has a fantastic and mild sparkling sake, and Sho Chiku Bai even is producing Fuji apple sake and lychee sake.  So to tie up this segment on sake, I’ll say that there are some up-and-coming sakes that may well pair wonderfully with sushi, but right now they are few and far between.

Beer
This is my favorite alcoholic beverage to have in front of me when eating sushi. Many beers are mild enough to not overpower most sushi.  I recommend Japanese beer with sushi just like I would recommend American beer with burgers or German beer with Bratwurst, or a French beer when you are screaming “We surrender, please don’t take our cheese!”  Subtle parts of a nation’s beer work well with its food.  Sapporo is a favorite beer of mine, and so is Asahi with their “Dry” brew.  Kirin has a beer called “Ichiban” which is a fantastic beer and Kirin Light has a clean bright finish that won’t challenge your sushi at all.  You may want to experiment with Japanese beers until you find one that you like. Japanese beers you’ll find in the sushi bar tend to come in regular beer bottle size or an extra large bottle.

Wine
In the book Sushi A to Z, The Ultimate Guide, I stated that wine had no business with sushi at all.  Well, because of that statement, I believe the wine industry has sent a hit man out for me.  There are very few wine makers I have met that haven’t taken me aside and given me a good talking to.  What makes it worse is that I live right in the middle of California’s wine country, so I get stopped a lot!  In my defense, at the time I wrote that there were maybe only one or two wines that were actually meant to work well with sushi.  Since then, maaaaannnnnyyyy wines have been made that go well with sushi. 

If you would like a starting point, first try the Shannon Ridge Sauvignon Blanc with any kind of sushi; I think it was made specifically to be served at the sushi bar.  And if you want a red wine to go with a meal of maguro or rare tuna, the Shannon Ridge Barbera screams to be matched with that fish.  These are from just one winery, and it’s forty miles from the nearest sushi bar!  One of the first wines ever created specifically to match with sushi is a Spanish wine created by a Japanese winemaker and is called Oroya, and though I have not tried it yet it’s reported to be great. Wine paired with sushi has finally arrived (and you can call off the assassin now).

Hard liquor
The Japanese love whiskey and this is proven by the fact that a Japanese brand (Yoichi) just won “Best single malt Scotch in the world 2008” at an international competition in London. But here I go again, about to incite another industry to lobby for my demise:  hard liquor has NO place in the sushi bar.  As a matter of fact, I doubt you will find many sushi bars that even carry hard liquors.  Whiskey, vodka, gin, rum, even in mixed drinks, are as tongue deadening as having habañero-flavored breakfast cereals.

Green Tea
I always have green tea in front of me at the sushi bar. The grassy hay-like flavor accents the flavor of sushi without challenging it at all.  The original and only drink served at the first sushi carts was green tea in a giant sized cup.  The customers would sip the tea with the sushi, and when their meal was finished they would wash their hands in the last remnants of their tea and wipe them dry on the cart’s noren.  Most sushi bars will serve a good quality tea for customers, but they may have higher quality teas available for people who request them.  To be completely honest, discussing a good Japanese green tea to drink with sushi is like asking what would be the best music to play while trying to seduce a woman - there are going to be an infinite number of answers but a few names will come up more than once. Here are two things that I have noted:  Gyokuro is the highest quality, sencha is very good, and I wouldn’t think of ordering anything less than either of them.

Water
If you don’t like the taste of your municipal water then be sure to ask for bottled water.  If your sushi bar serves “Ice Age” brand water (in a cobalt blue bottle) definitely request it by name.  It is hands down the best water you will ever try, and I feel robbed because nobody distributes it in my area anymore.  I’ve tried many bottled water brands with sushi and “Ice Age” water’s flavor is so clean that I find that it makes the sushi taste better!  “Iceberg” is also an excellent brand but also hard to find (at least in my area).  Their vodka processing is taking up much of their water stock now and making it (the water) harder to get a hold of.   Many kinds of bottled water come from municipal sources and you can taste the difference, but I always have water in front of me at the sushi bar. 

Soda pop
The first thought that comes to your mind I’m sure is, “Are you kidding me?” and I would generally agree, but with a couple of exceptions.  Ginger ale actually works great with sushi! To a lesser extent some of the clear sodas work fine too, but I would avoid anything with any coloring or heavy sugary tastes.  After all, you are there to taste sushi, not cola.

Milk
I’m not a fan of milk in any situation, and that isn’t going to change here.  Milk contains casein, a major ingredient in glue.  This ingredient, combined with the starches in the rice will just gum up your mouth to the delicate flavors that are instilled in the rice.  Oh great, now the milk board will be sending killer cows after me, I’m sure!

When I go out for sushi, I go for a big experience.  I get lots of food, and as a result lots to drink as well.  You may have noticed I don’t choose just one beverage.  I usually have beer, green tea, and water all sitting in front of me.  The thing to think about when choosing what to drink with sushi shouldn’t be “What should I drink” or “What do I want to drink?” as much as “What do I want to drink that won’t deaden my tongue to the main part of the meal?”  There are now even sake sommeliers that can recommend drinks for you at the sushi bars and help you get the most out of your dining experience.  If your sushi bar doesn’t have one of these people on staff, it’s always acceptable to ask the Itamae (your sushi chef) what he recommends with what you are eating.

The most important thing to remember is that you are there to enjoy a meal and the people you are with.  Becoming overly sophistic about the meal and its accoutrements does nothing to enhance the meal; if anything, you lose some of the pleasure of the experience.  So eat, drink, have fun, and have a designated driver.

© Ross A. Christensen  2008

Umami
By Ross A. Christensen
 

Sweet, Sour, Salty, and Bitter.

These are the four taste areas of the human tongue.  Now in the food world, all the rage is the fifth taste, what the Japanese have long called “Umami” (pronounced “oo-MAH-me”). The best description of this taste is that it could be called “earthy” “heady” even “unctuous” although the word in Japanese means “savory, meaty, delicious.” Umami is the detection of earthy flavors in your food, and the presence of umami flavors is proven to enhance foods it is eaten with.

The actual taste can be traced to a natural amino acid, Glutamic Acid, which breaks down into (monosodium) L-glutamate.  This is naturally found in many foods.  It also has linking factors with other ribonucleotides like guanosine monophosphate and inosine monophosphate.  Not only do some foods naturally contain umami like tomatoes, mushrooms, and kelp, but certain processes produce it as well.  Slow cooking, brewing, and fermenting all create umami during their processes.

The recent growing acceptance of Umami as an official fifth taste can be traced back to the renowned French Chef Auguste Escoffier, who arguably is one of the most important chefs in the history of cooking.  In the late 1800’s through the early 1900’s he set the culinary world on fire.  His contributions to gastronomy are still seen in restaurant and home kitchens today, and will no doubt continue for a long time into the future.  One of the things he did was to create a veal broth that didn’t contain any of the four primary flavors, and yet it was truly delicious.  How was this possible? How could a recipe contain no “flavors” yet be so wonderful? By making a stock of veal, which contains inosinate, and adding onions, containing glutamate, he had created a big steaming bowl of umami.

Almost simultaneously (1907), in Japan, biochemistry professor Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University came to realize that kelp (kombu) broth had a taste to it that was reminiscent of many other foods such as asparagus, cheeses, meats, and tomatoes that didn’t fit with the four known tastes.  He traced this factor to the glutamates which are found in all of these items.  He finally isolated this factor (its actual chemical profile is C5H9NO4) and turned it into a product, Monosodium Glutamate (MSG).  Scientists of the day ran to their microscopes and looked at the human tongue. Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter, but NOPE, no Glutamate section of the tongue!” Professor Ikeda, although he is now known as one of Japan’s ten greatest inventors, was discounted by his contemporaries, and umami itself faded into obscurity.  Now, new research started in the 1980’s and another more recent study at the University Of Miami School Of Medicine in 2000 have both come to new conclusions.  They agreed with the past assessment that “there is no glutamate section to the human tongue”, but revised their predecessors findings with “There are glutamate receptors all over the human tongue”.  Sweet, Sour, Salty, and Bitter all have specific, defined areas where those tastes can be received and transmitted to the brain.  Glutamate doesn’t have one distinct area, but receptors over the entire surface of the tongue.  So it looks like Chef Escoffier and Professor Ikeda had in fact discovered something new, something the scientists couldn’t, if not wouldn’t, see or explain.  Now-a-days still not all (western) scientists will agree with the concept that there are five primary tastes.   

There is a dichotomy with the growing acceptance of Umami, and that is the hatred the general public has for MSG.  For years, people have avoided Asian foods because of the fear of the MSG causing a headache or asthma attack.  So what is the basis for this hatred of MSG, and what is the MSG headache?  Oddly enough, it’s a myth.  People who speak of the evils of MSG are promoting their theory from anecdote and coincidence.  The thing I find really amusing is that no one, not one scientifically verified speck of proof has been found, that MSG is bad for you in any way.  Even the FDA has stated several times and over numerous studies that MSG is safe for human consumption. If you have eaten at a Chinese restaurant and had an asthma attack or a headache, it is most likely from something besides MSG, or it’s psychosomatic due to the bad press MSG has had.  After all, if it’s the MSG then you couldn’t eat sushi, Thai food, almost any meat from a crock pot, meat based soups and stews, parmesan cheese or beer because MSG occurs naturally in all these foods.  Having a Caesar salad would probably kill you; with the ingredients it contains, it might as well be an umami grenade. So it begs the question, “If glutamates are bad for you, why does your tongue have so many receptors that detect them and why do they make other tastes so much better?”  After all, your tongue doesn’t have taste receptors dedicated to cyanide or anthrax. 

Trying to avoid MSG? It’s impossible. As I stated previously, it occurs naturally in many different foods, including meats, beers, soy sauce, and fish sauce. It’s in your fast food, boxed foods, nacho cheese flavored chips, ketchup, it grows naturally in your garden vegetables; literally, it’s everywhere.  Even products that are labeled “organic” can contain MSG since it is a naturally occurring product.  Vegetarian foods use lots of MSG (under various different names) in order to give the foods a more satisfying taste.  Even your own body produces 40 grams of it per day, and human breast milk is ten times higher in glutamates than cow’s milk, regardless of the mother’s diet.

Other names for ingredients that provide umami to a food.

Some people say that using these alternative names constitutes “hiding” MSG in foods, but the truth is that glutamates come in many different products.  While just the act of adding soy sauce to your dinner adds glutamates to it, but you wouldn’t call adding ketchup to your hot dog “sneaking” MSG into your lunch, but it amounts to being the same thing.   Glutamates are a safe, natural flavor and are inescapable in the world today.  Keep that in mind when you are trying to avoid:

Calcium Caseinate

Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP)

Monopotassium Glutamate

Hydrolyzed Plant Protein (HPP)

Glutamic acid

Sodium Caseinate

Vegetable Protein Extract

Autolyzed Plant Protein

Hydrolyzed Protein

Natural flavoring

Carrageenan

Maltodextrin

Gelatin

Protein Hydrolysate

Yeast extract

Yeast food

Yeast nutrient