The California Roll
Introduction
The California roll is a product of a modern-day hybrid culture, flourishing in the United States and across North America. With Japanese emigration and settlement in America, the California roll, in all it's infamy, was born as a product of the integration of traditional methods with foreign resources and ingredients. The roll itself serves as a metaphor of the processes which occur when two cultures meet, integrate and evolve to form a new, distinct entity. Originating as a Chinese method of raw fish preservation in the 4th century, sushi has evolved and adapted to the many cultures that have embraced it since. Once a culinary luxury, reserved mainly for elite consumers, sushi has become a readily available cuisine. The creation of the California roll has allowed for this, as it utilizes untraditional ingredients that are inexpensive and readily available. The California roll, quite literally being a product of Japanese Californians, is a prime example of old cultural tradition adopting to contemporary social resources and demands.
A History of Sushi in Japan
Although the term sushi is usually considered to be a very specific style of food, it actually represents a very broad version of cuisine that involves many different types and forms. Originating in China in the 4th century, sushi was used as a means of preserving raw fish through the production of lactic acid during the fermentation of rice. Rice would be wrapped around a piece of raw fish and salt, and then placed in storage for several months, where the fermentation of the rice would allow for a “pickling” effect on the fish thus increasing the shelf life1. It wasn’t until the Heian and Muromachi periods that this form of fish preservation and sushi in general became popular in Japan (roughly the 8th century).
As an island nation, the people of Japan were able to effectively use (and sometimes overuse) their abundance of fish (and absence of meat) as a way of creating a simple and delicious meal. After sushi was introduced into Japan, the Japanese took a different approach than the Chinese in which they turned sushi into a cuisine where by eating it together with the rice rather than discarding it and only using the rice to preserve the fish. This occurred in the 15th and 16th centuries due to the Japanese peoples belief that the original way of preserving the fish “was too time consuming [and] that it was a waste of rice”1. During this time the creation of Namanare-zushi signified a change in the speed of production of sushi from several months to several days. The emergence of this particular form of sushi “was the point where sushi took on the character of a complete snack”2 and ultimately lead to the movement from a preserved food to a luxury food. By moving forward from a preserved food to a luxury food, sushi chefs were able to diversify the types of fish that they made and were no longer “limited to those [fish] caught seasonally in large quantities”2. In the 17th century, as the Japanese cuisine continued to move forward, they began to add vinegar to the rice, which created a “rice-and-fish combination with a tasty acidic flavour”2 In the 19th century, sushi changed again into the form known as “nigiri-zushi”, which involves neither the vinegar dressing nor the older ways of preserving sushi. Nigiri-zushi became very popular on the street of Edo and was the final stage in the “transformation of sushi from preserved food into a fast food”2.
With the progression of sushi in Japan, street vendors were able to effectively sell their product on the streets (and later in shops) by pushing carts through the streets offering to make sushi for anyone who could pay. These carts were equipped with “a box filled with ice [and fish]” and as the vendor came across people who wanted sushi he would “lift the bamboo mat covering [the fish] to display what he had to offer”1. Due to the abundance of fish and rice, sushi was available to everyone and was not necessarily limited to particular social classes. The California roll ultimately derives from all of the types of sushi I noted above. It is an integration of the ideas of Japanese cuisine and western American cuisine with alterations to the ingredients within the roll. In contrast to the traditional cuisine, the California roll often does not contain fresh seafood ingredients, but instead offers more economically efficient replacements.
A Brief History of Japanese Americans
In 1868, Japan faced a changing political, social and economic climate, which Japan saw the re-introduction of imperial rule. This change was called the Meiji Restoration. At this time we start to see a larger number of Japanese leaving the country and immigrating into the United States. In about another twenty years the United States signed a law called the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned the immigration of the Chinese into the United States. As a result of this, many sought to fill in the gaps of the work force which were previously occupied by the Chinese, with Japanese immigrates. In 1907, the Japanese and the United States entered into an agreement which would end the immigration of Japanese workers, i.e. men, but would they would still allow the immigration of the familes of the men who were already living and working in the United States. In 1924, however, the agreement can to an end with the Immigration Act of 1924, which capped the number of immigrates who could come to the U.S. every year.
As a result of all these laws that were passed in order to stop massive immigration, it caused generational gaps in the Japanese population. The Issei are all those who immigrated before the Immigration Act of 1924. Any children born the Issei were part of the Nisei generation, it continues so forth with children from each generation becoming the next ‘named’ generational gaps . There was no mass immigration again until the 1960’s, the Immigration Act of 1965, ended the ban of immigration from multiple countries including Japan.
During the second World War, many of the Japanese who were residents or immigrates were taken and placed into internment camps. The happened after the attack on Pearl Harbour, and so it was a retroactive step to sure up defensives. All of the Japanese who lived on the West Coast of the U.S. were all interned. They were all put together, but whilst they lived in the camps they would cultivate the land. They were however, also recognized for the their military services during the war as well.
In California, the Japanese would tend to be focused on cultivating the land. California is a prime location for farming even today. They used new irrigation techniques which allowed the farming on land which had previously been unable to support the needs of farming. During WWII many in the west lost their farms during the time they were interned. They did continue to farm as said before, in the camps they were forced to stay in.
The Cuisine of Japanese Americans and the Birth of the California Roll
Along with the arrival of the Japanese Americans came Japanese American cuisine. However, this concept held many different flavors long before the events leading up to the introduction of the California roll in 1973.
For the first generation of Japanese Americans, the Issei, survival took precedence over profit-driven businesses like restaurant establishments. However, even with limited resources, the Issei began to use American ingredients to craft more traditional Japanese dishes – a concept that would later give birth to the California roll as well. These first hybrid dishes included Shoyu hot dogs (hot dogs seasoned with brown sugar and soy sauce) and spam musubi (a block of sushi rice topped with a slice of spam). These foods were introduced to Americans not through restaurant, but in school lunches as 2nd generation Japanese-American school children would trade lunches with the American children3.
Establishing restaurants that would appease the westerner was a difficult task for the Japanese – especially in light of the racial attitudes held towards them around World War II. The early restaurants opening as early as 1855 served mostly American foods like hamburgers, pork chops, and apple pie3,4,5. The authentic Japanese experience was limited to rice and soy sauce at the table.
The shift to the authentic Japanese experience was started by Noritoshi Kanai, a Japanese chef that decided that the only way to make profit in the restaurant business, one would have to be popular with the Americans. He was also committed to preserving Japanese tradition, keeping to his concept of “East Asian food that disgusted white people”4. Soon after the first sushi restaurant was born when Kawafuku opened its doors in 1966, in LA. Others started to follow, the third of which was Tokyo Kaikan – the birthplace of the California roll. This was the solution to a problem with Kanai’s plan – in that the majority of clientele were Japanese, not Americans. Eating raw fish was seen as daring and novel, but was far from mainstream4.
The California roll went back to the same concept used by the Issei to make spam musubi. Use ingredients Americans are used to and make it look like authentic Japanese food. Foods like roast beef, poast pork, ham, smoked salmon, chicken, and tomatoes are all components unique to westernized sushi1. The California roll is a traditional maki roll made with crab, avocado, and cucumber. Here, the avocado serves to replace fatty tuna belly – a more traditional ingredient Kanai used in his menu.
The advent of the California roll, along with other westernized sushi restaurants, quickly gained popularity in LA and soon spread virally first to New York and then to the rest of America. By 2006, over 9000 sushi restaurants were operating in America. The California roll has stood the test of time, as it is still found in virtually every sushi restaurant menu and has even made its way back to Japan4.
The westernization of sushi goes on, increasingly so by chefs of non-Japanese descent. From African-American chefs in Memphis rolling sushi with okra to Caucasians posting as head sushi-chefs (like Robby Cook – apprentice to Iron Chef’s Masaharu Morimoto)6 sushi since the California roll has truly been embraced by the western world.
References
1. Omae, Kinjiro and Tachibana, Yuzuru. The Book of Sushi. New York: Kodansha International Ltd, 1981. 76.
2. Ishige, Naomichi. The History and Culture of Japanese Food. Kegan Paul: London 2001 (p. 227-231).
3. White, Merry. “Japanese American Food” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America Ed. Andrew F. Smith. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
4. Corson, Trevor. The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008. 44-51, 131-134
5. Hosokawa, Bill. Out of the Frying Pan: Reflections of a Japanese American. Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 1998. 133-136
6. Corson, Trevor. “American Sushi: U.S. Chefs are Bringing Japan’s Trademark Cuisine Back to its Roots”. The Atlantic (Washington, DC) June 2009. 24-25.