According to the Japanese, raw salmon did not belong in sushi until the 1990s.
Salmon sushi is perhaps Norway’s most successful export product. EPA/AOP
Did you know that salmon was not originally put in sushi by the Japanese, but by the Norwegians?
Too much salmon
Norway in the 1980s had a peculiar problem: too much salmon.
Salmon farming was developed to be more and more profitable from the 1970s, and by the 1980s, local freezers were bursting with tons of salmon.
Japan was chosen as a destination because the country was known as a large consumer of fish, but at that time Japan was suffering from overfishing. Norway Exports – page says that Japan was only able to produce 50 percent of the necessary seafood itself.
The Norwegian government sent him as a salesman by Bjørn Eirik Olsen. He had a difficult task: he had to convince an entire nation that salmon is indeed suitable for sushi.
“No dice”
Norwegian salmon was different from Japanese salmon, so Olsen’s idea did not arouse great enthusiasm at first.
– It won’t work, they said, Olsen recalls NPR’s in the interview.
– They said that the (salmon) color is wrong: it should be redder. It stinks. And they thought the head was the wrong shape.
In Japan, salmon was used to be cooked, so it was not put in sushi or other dishes containing raw fish as such. Raw salmon was even considered dangerous, as there could be parasites in raw salmon.
Cheap salmon sparked interest
Olsen negotiated with local companies for many years, but finally managed to sell the idea to the well-known food manufacturer Nishi Rei. The deal included 5,000 tons of Norwegian salmon at a low price and the fact that Nishi Rei would try to sell the salmon as sushi in local grocery stores.
When a well-known Japanese brand brought salmon sushi to stores in the early 1990s, local prejudices were dispelled.
NPR reports that after this, salmon sushi spread throughout Japan within a few years. Sushi restaurants in the lower price range were especially enthusiastic about salmon.
The persistence of the Norwegians paid off, because according to Norway Exports, this is one of the country’s largest export projects. Olsen’s project lasted a total of 15 years, but salmon sushi came to stay and spread from Japan to the rest of the world – even to our sushi buffets.