Regardless of its escalating recognition over the past several decades, many westerners continue to be wary of the idea of sushi, and much of this trepidation is due in part to the ingredients, many of which sound strange and foreign to us, despite having been translated into English. Possibly chief amid these is seaweed, or from here on out: sushi nori. Sushi nori is a common ingredient in, and method of preparing sushi, generally comprising the wrap inside which all the other ingredients are housed.
Soy nori sushi, whilst commonly simply referred to as sea weed, is really a type of algae traditionally cultivated in the harbors of Japan. The original method of harvest – scraping the algae out of dock pilings, rolling it out into thin sheets and then allowing it dry in the sun – doesn’t precisely sound delicious, but modern methods of cultivation and planning tend to be far removed from scraping it out of a dirty harbor. Nowadays, the process of shredding and rack-drying sushi nori can be a highly sophisticated form of agriculture closer similar to paper making than anything else.
The actual cultivation of nori begins in an exceedingly controlled environment, in harbors or bays especially designated for that purpose, functioning like an aquatic version of a traditional agricultural field. On the surface of these waters, buoys are located from which large nets are suspended, floating on the water’s surface. The seaweed used in the production of sushi nori, a species of red algae called Porphyra, is then able to grow naturally upon these nets.
Sushi nori – nori being the Japanese name for Porphyra – has a very small gestation period, only taking about 45 days from the first seeding to the harvest of fully harvested plants, and several harvests can be made from a single seeding, usually after intervals of around ten days. After the plants are harvested, they are processed using a assortment of machines specially designed to replicate the operation of shredding and drying by hand, with the benefit of enhanced efficiency along with speed. The end result is a large, paper-thin sheet of dried sushi nori. These sheets may cost anywhere from six cents, where sushi is harvested in Chinese waters, to $50 for nori harvested from the traditional harbors off the coast of Japan, based on quality and the exact method of creation.
Sheets of nori are generally cut in shapes of around 18 centimeters by 20 centimeters, making them the ideal size for preparing sushi nori. The sheets are laid out and the various ingredients – which include a massive assortment of seafood and vegetables, depending on the exact sort of sushi – are put on top. The entire sheet is then rolled up, enclosing the other components inside and the roll on its own sliced into several sections, assuming the shape and appearance that we usually associate with sushi.
