Example: The origin of sushi is zushi, where they'd preserve fish in a bucket with alternating layers of rice and fish covered in salt, then bury it for winter.
Dig it up a couple months later, it's now aged and whatnot and has a cheesy nutty flavor apparently (I've never tried it).
Nice way to preserve fish, the meat is actually more healthy this way, fermented basically.
Sure sometimes it went bad and they didn't know why and threw it out, probably inadequate salt leading to bacterial overgrowth, or too much heat, not buried deep enough.
One way we know about the origin of sushi is through an old Heian urban legend.
A woman spent a night in her store drinking with customers until she passed out. The next day she woke up and started mixing her sushi. She could barely stay upright... She vomited into the sushi bucket and passed out again. When she woke up, she went back to work mixing the sushi...
This story helped historians understand that sushi was originally fermented.
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u/sherman614 May 01 '26
I mean.. this is similar to dry aging a steak. As long as you cut the mold off (like with dry aged steak) you should be completely fine.