How Norway Created Salmon Sushi • Hacker News Board

Re: How Norway Created Salmon Sushi

#11

Post by kijin » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 11:23 AM UTC

The fact that the Norwegians had to freeze all of their surplus salmon probably helped, too. Freezing kills parasites, eliminating the #1 reason the Japanese didn't want to eat raw salmon.

Nowadays, most salmon stays frozen until a few hours before it goes on your sushi. Salmon is uniquely suited for freezing/thawing because its high fat content helps it retain texture. Freezing also has the side effect of giving salmon a relatively long shelf life, making it readily available in parts of the world that are thousands of miles away from actual salmon sources.

Re: How Norway Created Salmon Sushi

#12

Post by sho » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 11:25 AM UTC

lamby wrote: post #10

MrJagil wrote: post #4

As always when sushi is mentioned on HN, here is a link to the fine documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772925/ And Tampopo should be in the same vain, supposedly very good, fiction though: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048

> As always when sushi is mentioned on HN, here is a link to the fine documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi Which always amuses me because, at least to me, «Jiro Dreams of Sushi» is not remotely about sushi at all.

To be fair, it actually is remotely about sushi.

Re: How Norway Created Salmon Sushi

#13

Post by twic » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 11:30 AM UTC

pvaldes wrote: post #9

Another way of see this is that both, Japan and Norway have a big aquaculture industry and they compete. To assure the control of the salmon's market is an essential goal for Norway as nation; they produce 1 million of tons each year for the european market. When somebody tries to farm new salmon (in France or Spain or whatever) they typically flood the market with below cost salmon or trouts until the competence is…

Interesting. Quite a lot of salmon and trout in the UK is Scottish. It never occurred to me that we might only be eating it locally, and not exporting it.

Re: How Norway Created Salmon Sushi

#14

Post by 4ad » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 11:36 AM UTC

twic wrote: post #13

pvaldes wrote: post #9

Another way of see this is that both, Japan and Norway have a big aquaculture industry and they compete. To assure the control of the salmon's market is an essential goal for Norway as nation; they produce 1 million of tons each year for the european market. When somebody tries to farm new salmon (in France or Spain or whatever) they typically flood the market with below cost salmon or trouts until the competence is…

Interesting. Quite a lot of salmon and trout in the UK is Scottish. It never occurred to me that we might only be eating it locally, and not exporting it.

It is exported, I can find it in Austria, however, it's no near as prevalent as Norwegian or Austrian (yes!) salmon.

Than being said, prices are now crazy low in Austria compared to what they were a few years ago.

Re: How Norway Created Salmon Sushi

#15

Post by 4ad » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 11:39 AM UTC

sovande wrote: post #5

kevindeasis wrote: post #2

speaking of sushi, here's a video about the extinction of blue fin tuna (includes economics, history, culture): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hivvTo6VSS8

One more reason to eat salmon sushi, salmon is farmed and will not go extinct.

Farmed salmon is much inferior to wild salmon though.

Re: How Norway Created Salmon Sushi

#16

Post by roel_v » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 11:39 AM UTC

twic wrote: post #13

pvaldes wrote: post #9

Another way of see this is that both, Japan and Norway have a big aquaculture industry and they compete. To assure the control of the salmon's market is an essential goal for Norway as nation; they produce 1 million of tons each year for the european market. When somebody tries to farm new salmon (in France or Spain or whatever) they typically flood the market with below cost salmon or trouts until the competence is…

Interesting. Quite a lot of salmon and trout in the UK is Scottish. It never occurred to me that we might only be eating it locally, and not exporting it.

In the Netherlands Scottish salmon is sold as 'premium'. Funny how these things go sometimes.

Re: How Norway Created Salmon Sushi

#17

Post by jpatokal » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 11:46 AM UTC

To this day, the salmon in Japanese sushi restaurants is always labeled サーモン "saamon", which is known to be imported and is OK to eat raw; and never 鮭 "s(h)ake", which is (usually) local and always salted and cooked first -- even though ''shake'' as a term covers all types of salmons.

Re: How Norway Created Salmon Sushi

#18

Post by morganm » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 11:50 AM UTC

sovande wrote: post #5

kevindeasis wrote: post #2

speaking of sushi, here's a video about the extinction of blue fin tuna (includes economics, history, culture): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hivvTo6VSS8

One more reason to eat salmon sushi, salmon is farmed and will not go extinct.

Open-net pen farmed salmon is done in the same water sources that wild salmon swim through. Farmed salmon have no natural predators so viruses are more readily transmitted to their wild counterparts. For more information: http://www.salmonconfidential.ca/

See Oceanwise's salmon recommendations:

http://www.oceanwise.ca/seafood/salmon

Re: How Norway Created Salmon Sushi

#19

Post by gsnedders » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 11:55 AM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #16

twic wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Quite a lot of salmon and trout in the UK is Scottish. It never occurred to me that we might only be eating it locally, and not exporting it.

In the Netherlands Scottish salmon is sold as 'premium'. Funny how these things go sometimes.

There's a fair market (at least here in Scotland) for "premium" line-caught salmon, so I suppose it could be similar there?

Re: How Norway Created Salmon Sushi

#20

Post by pvaldes » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 12:31 PM UTC

twic wrote: post #13

pvaldes wrote: post #9

Another way of see this is that both, Japan and Norway have a big aquaculture industry and they compete. To assure the control of the salmon's market is an essential goal for Norway as nation; they produce 1 million of tons each year for the european market. When somebody tries to farm new salmon (in France or Spain or whatever) they typically flood the market with below cost salmon or trouts until the competence is…

Interesting. Quite a lot of salmon and trout in the UK is Scottish. It never occurred to me that we might only be eating it locally, and not exporting it.

UK produces 162.000 ton of farmed salmon in Scotland and 11.000 ton of rainbow trout (2012) but it lacks of many suitable areas to growth and currently is the 5 or 6th european country.

Norway produced instead 1,3 million tons of salmon in 2012 (and growing). Is the first european productor and by far the largest (Spain is the second with about 260.000 tons/year of mussels). Their aquaculture industry is an strategic sector for this 'small' (in terms of population) nation.

Is interesting how Norway won against the huge japan pride focusing in improving the visibility in supermarkets and targetting people that wanted cheap food. Realizing that to target first the higher social classes was a lost battle from the start.