Sushi

Vinegared rice, seasoned and cooled to body temperature, paired with raw or cured fish, vegetables or egg: sushi is the rice, not the fish, and the word covers a family that runs from the pressed oshizushi of Osaka to the hand-formed nigiri of Tokyo and the rolled maki that most of the world pictures. It began as a way of preserving fish in fermenting rice, and the fast version served at Edo street stalls in the 1820s, a slice of fish on a finger of rice eaten in one bite, is the ancestor of what a sushi counter serves now. The nigiri is the chef's test; maki, temaki hand rolls and chirashi bowls are the same ingredients in easier shapes. Outside Japan the form absorbed cream cheese, mayonnaise, avocado and deep-frying, and those rolls are a separate cuisine that should be judged on its own terms rather than as sushi gone wrong.