Sushi started as a way to keep fish from rotting. Cooks in Southeast Asia packed freshwater fish in fermented rice, waited, and ate the fish while the rice got thrown out. That method is called narezushi, and everything that came after grew out of it, from vinegared nigiri to the California roll. Japan’s earliest written record of sushi is the Yoro Code of 718.
Nigiri, the form most people picture, appeared in Edo in the 1820s, more than 1,100 years after that record.
The spread since then has been huge. A 2023 survey by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries counted about 187,000 Japanese restaurants outside Japan, more than triple the count a decade earlier.
Where did sushi originate?
Most likely in the Mekong River basin of Southeast Asia, as narezushi, fish preserved in fermented rice. It moved to China first and then on to Japan.
Where the earliest evidence points
Naomichi Ishige surveyed fermented fish products across Asia for Japan’s National Museum of Ethnology, and he puts narezushi’s probable center of origin in the Mekong basin. He links it to irrigated rice farming there.
Wikipedia’s sushi entry widens that area to include the Irrawaddy basin, in present-day Myanmar.
Ishige traces narezushi into China with Han Chinese settlers moving south of the Yangtze. Written dates for the first Chinese record vary by source, anywhere from the 2nd century CE to a dictionary of about the 4th century.
Similar fermented fish-and-rice foods are still made around Asia:
- burong isda (Philippines)
- pekasam (Indonesia and Malaysia)
- pla ra (Thailand)
- sikhae (Korea)
Ishige’s broader survey finds that Southeast Asia remains the zone of fermented fish, while Northeast Asia shifted toward soybean ferments.
How narezushi preserved fish
Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) describes nare-zushi as fish stuffed with rice and kept under a stone weight while lactic acid fermentation does its work. In practice it went like this.
- Gut and salt the fish.
- Pack the fish with cooked rice.
- Press it under a stone weight for months or longer.
- Eat the fish and discard the rice.
Souhonke Kitashina-rouho, a funazushi shop in Shiga founded in 1619, still salt-cures its fish for two years and then ferments it in rice for 1 to 2 more, so one batch takes 3 to 4 years. That is a long time to wait on a single fish.
The rice worked as the fermentation medium, not the meal.
When did sushi arrive in Japan?
Along with wet-field rice farming in the Yayoi period, as far as anyone can tell. The earliest Japanese written record of sushi is the Yoro Code of 718, from the Nara period, though whether the sushi in that code was narezushi is not fully settled.
Ishige finds that narezushi’s distribution overlaps the early route by which rice cultivation entered Japan. That ties its arrival to the rice-farming era of the Yayoi period rather than to a single year.
The Nara period (710 to 794) supplies the first text. According to Sushi Walker, the Yoro Code lists items such as abalone sushi and mussel sushi as tribute to the imperial court. Theories differ on what the dish was, and narezushi is only one of them.
By the Heian period (794 to 1185), the Engishiki records many sushi names among tribute goods from the provinces (Sushi Walker).
Funazushi from Lake Biwa survives as the oldest style of nare-zushi still made in Japan, according to MAFF. Shiga Prefecture’s 2019 tourism brochure ties its rise to the lake’s steady supply of carp.
That supply is the weak point. The same brochure notes that the lake’s carp population has declined in recent years.
How did vinegar replace fermentation in Japanese sushi?
Slowly, and in steps. Namanare shortened fermentation in the Muromachi period (1336 to 1573) so the rice could be eaten with the fish, and haya-zushi dropped it altogether in the Edo period by mixing vinegar into cooked rice.
| Style | Period | Rice treatment | Ready to eat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Narezushi | Ancient to medieval | Fermented, then discarded | Months or longer |
| Namanare | Muromachi (1336 to 1573) | Partly fermented, eaten with fish | Shorter than narezushi |
| Haya-zushi | Edo (1603 to 1867) | Vinegar mixed in, no fermentation | Eaten at once |
| Nigirizushi | 1820s, Edo | Vinegared rice shaped by hand | Made to order |
Before vinegar, cooks sped fermentation along with sake and sake lees. Koji did the same job, per Wikipedia’s sushi entry and MAFF.
MAFF places the creation of haya-zushi in the Genroku era (1688 to 1704).
Wikipedia’s history of sushi entry points to a 1689 cookbook describing haya-zushi and a 1728 cookbook describing vinegar poured over box-pressed hako-zushi.
Matsumoto Yoshiichi of Edo is the name attached to vinegared rice, placed in the early 17th century by some accounts and the mid 17th century by others. The earliest dated document in these sources is the 1689 cookbook, so his date stays unsettled.
Early vinegar was aka-su, a red vinegar fermented from sake lees, and the rice took about half the vinegar used in sushi today (Wikipedia).
Mizkan’s own company history credits Nakano Matazaemon, a sake brewer from Handa, with making sake-lees vinegar after an 1804 visit to Edo, and shipping it there from about 1810. Handa City’s Mizkan Room exhibit adds that lees vinegar cost less than rice vinegar at a time when rice was a luxury.
Seasoned rice with something on top is still the template. For a look at both parts, see this breakdown of what goes into sushi today.
Who invented nigiri sushi, and why did it take off in Edo?
Hanaya Yohei (1799 to 1858) is the chef credited with inventing or perfecting nigiri, and his Ryogoku shop opened in 1824. Some accounts share the credit and name Sakaiya Matsugoro of Matsunozushi beside him.
The Hanaya Yohei account
Yohei pressed a sliced topping (neta) onto vinegared rice by hand, instead of pressing the rice in a wooden box (Sushi Walker). He also put wasabi between rice and topping, a form Sushi Walker calls extremely close to modern nigiri. Hanaya counted among the Three Great Sushi of Edo.
Not everyone buys the tidy version. A family account kept by Koizumi Seizaburo, brother of the fourth-generation Yohei, mentions earlier hand-formed attempts that failed commercially (Sushi-pedia).
Nigiri of his era ran roughly two to four times the size of a modern piece, per Sushi Walker.
That size gap shows most clearly against the modern piece described in this overview of how nigiri is built today.
Why Edo stalls made sushi fast food
One piece cost 8 mon, which nippon.com puts at under 100 yen in today’s money. Tamagoyaki cost 16 mon because eggs were a luxury.
Land was scarce in Edo’s crowded districts, so yatai stalls beat full shops. Utamaro’s 1786 picture book Ehon Edo suzume already shows sushi stalls in Ryogoku and Asakusa.
Stalls predate Yohei. According to Mizkan’s company history, rolled maki sushi and boxed hako-zushi were already selling in Edo before nigiri.
Edomae meant fish from the bay in front of Edo, and nothing was refrigerated. That made toppings a matter of shigoto (handwork), according to Sushi Walker, which covered vinegar-curing, soy marinating (zuke), simmering and blanching.
Edo used small kohada where Kyoto and Osaka often put mackerel in pressed sushi (nippon.com).
Speed mattered more than ceremony.
How did nigiri spread beyond Edo?
Meiji-era policy that promoted Tokyo culture helped, and so did the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake that scattered Tokyo chefs. A postwar food-control rule that kept sushi shops open mattered too. Sources weight these differently.
On the Meiji side, the government pushed Tokyo culture outward and Edomae sushi traveled with it (Sushi Walker).
After the 1923 earthquake, chefs who lost their shops left Tokyo and opened new ones in the provinces.
The 1947 rule is the one with a number attached. Kikkoman’s The Japanese Table (Spring 2024) reports that an ordinance restricted rice dishes on restaurant menus, so sushi shops registered as food-processing contractors and made ten pieces from each cup of rice a customer brought. That workaround kept them legal while other restaurants stayed shut.
In Shun Gate’s interview with sushi researcher Terutoshi Hibino, that ten-pieces-per-go rule (a go is a traditional rice measure) is described as the basis of modern sushi sizes.
Large pieces were the norm until the Taisho era, and a machine for forming shari balls arrived in 1981 and became standard at chain stores (Sushi Walker).
Refrigeration changed the toppings. Kikkoman’s article says postwar advances in refrigeration made raw fish a common sushi topping.
Sources also disagree on timing. Mizkan’s company history has nigiri reaching national scale by 1868, while Sushi Walker credits Meiji policy for the nationwide spread and notes that Osaka shops had taken up nigiri after it caught on in Edo.
Of those factors, only the 1947 rule left a measurable mark on the product itself.
Who invented conveyor belt sushi?
Yoshiaki Shiraishi, who opened the first conveyor belt sushi restaurant, Mawaru Genroku Sushi, in Higashiosaka in 1958. The Asahi brewery story behind it, beer bottles riding a factory belt, is usually told as a legend.
That first shop opened in 1958 (Sushi Walker). In 1962 a utility model was registered for a “conveyor-equipped cooking dining table” (Sushi Walker), and an appearance at the 1970 Osaka Expo raised national recognition (Sushi Walker). The Genroku chain peaked at 240 to 250 shops (Food Republic, Wikipedia), and the market was worth about 740 billion yen in fiscal 2021 (Sushi Walker).
Wikipedia’s history of sushi gives 700 billion yen for 2021, so figures for that year run from 700 to 740 billion yen depending on the source.
Until 1978, only the Genroku chain could use the conveyor dining format, because the utility model rights stayed in force (Sushi Walker). Saveur and Food Republic place the end of the patent in the mid 1970s.
The format outgrew the chain that held the rights. Sushi Walker’s chain profile says Genroku Sushi now runs about 10 stores around Osaka, while Wikipedia’s conveyor belt sushi entry names Akindo Sushiro as the best-known Japanese brand as of 2010.
Plates are priced by color or pattern, and the bill is settled by counting them (Sushi Walker).
Early layouts seated every customer facing the belt, which did not work for groups (Wikipedia).
How did sushi reach the United States and the rest of the world?
Through Kawafuku, a sushi bar in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo that opened in 1966 by most accounts. The California roll came next, and chefs in two cities claim it.
A 2023 survey by Japan’s MAFF counted about 187,000 Japanese restaurants outside Japan, more than triple the figure of a decade earlier, with 26,040 in the United States (as reported by Kyodo).
The count covers Japanese restaurants of every kind, not sushi bars alone, and MAFF said a change in survey method also surfaced more outlets.
First sushi bars in Los Angeles
The Michelin Guide notes that accounts put Kawafuku’s opening anywhere from 1964 to 1966.
Noritoshi Kanai, an importer with Mutual Trading Co., opened it with chef Shigeo Saito. Kanai claimed to have coined the phrase “real sushi bar” for it.
Tokyo Kaikan, a Little Tokyo restaurant with an entirely different feel from Kawafuku, soon began serving its own sushi. There is an earlier print mention, a 1904 Los Angeles Herald item about a luncheon in Santa Monica. Kawafuku closed in 2006 (The Nibble).
Who invented the California roll?
The Los Angeles claim belongs to Ichiro Mashita, chef at Tokyo Kaikan in Little Tokyo. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, he could not source toro for much of the year, a cut explained in this guide to toro sushi, so he used avocado in its place and added crab.
His assistant Teruo Imaizumi is named in Today’s account, and Noritoshi Kanai of Mutual Trading, the restaurant’s supplier, credits Mashita (Wikipedia). The nori started on the outside and moved inside to suit hesitant diners (History.com).
Vancouver has its own candidate. Hidekazu Tojo moved there in 1971 and calls his version Tojo Maki. He built it inside-out for diners unused to raw fish and a seaweed wrapper (Wikipedia), and he admits he did not coin the name California roll (Canadian Encyclopedia).
Timing does not settle it. History.com puts the Los Angeles roll in the 1970s, while Wikipedia’s California roll entry places the Tokyo Kaikan prototype in the 1960s or early 1970s. Wikipedia reports Tojo’s own claim as the late 1970s, and Vancouver Magazine dates it to 1974.
Whoever made it first, the inside-out template spread, and chefs have since built many other sushi roll styles on it (Wikipedia).
What UNESCO recognized in 2013
UNESCO listed washoku, not sushi.
Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the Intergovernmental Committee, meeting in Baku, inscribed “Washoku, traditional dietary cultures of the Japanese, notably for the celebration of New Year” on December 4, 2013.
UNESCO’s summary describes New Year dishes and local ingredients such as rice, fish, vegetables and wild plants. It does not name sushi.
Voltaire Cang’s 2018 study in the International Journal of Cultural Property adds that a panel of government-appointed experts formally defined washoku for the inscription.
The listing says nothing about sushi’s history or about any one style of it.
Which parts of sushi history are disputed?
Quite a few, though the arguments are about dating and credit, not about the food. The table sets the competing versions side by side.
| Claim | Version A | Version B | Why they differ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Narezushi in Japan | Arrived with rice farming in the Yayoi period (Ishige) | First written record is the Yoro Code of 718, dish unclear (Wikipedia) | Rice-route reasoning versus the earliest text |
| Vinegar replaces fermentation | Early to mid 1600s, per Matsumoto Yoshiichi accounts | Genroku era, 1688 to 1704 (MAFF) | Named-inventor tradition versus dated cookbooks |
| Who started nigiri | Hanaya Yohei | Sakaiya Matsugoro, credited by some (Sushi Walker) | Credit rests on later writings, such as Koizumi Ugai’s |
| Hanaya Yohei’s start | Ryogoku shop in 1824 (nippon.com, Sushi Walker) | Stand from about 1828 (Mizkan) | Accounts order the carried box, stand and shop differently |
| Kaiten development time | About 5 years (Wikipedia) | About 10 years (Sushi Walker) | Brewery visit dated to 1947 (Saveur) or 1948 (Sushi Walker) |
| California roll | Ichiro Mashita, Tokyo Kaikan, Los Angeles | Hidekazu Tojo, Vancouver (Tojo Maki) | Each is tied to a restaurant and a later telling, and the dates overlap |
Yoshiichi’s date and Yohei’s credit both rest on tradition more than on a dated record, and so does Shiraishi’s brewery visit.
Use “credited with” for Hanaya Yohei and Matsumoto Yoshiichi. “Invented” claims more than the sources support.
History of Sushi FAQ
What does the word sushi mean?
The word comes from an archaic Japanese word for sour, so the literal sense is sour-tasting, per Wikipedia. The earliest sushi was sour from lactic fermentation, and the name stayed after vinegar took over.
Japanese philologists proposed the sour-taste origin by the end of the 17th century, according to Oishii: The History of Sushi.
Does sushi always mean raw fish?
No. Vinegared rice is the defining part of sushi, and toppings can be raw, cooked or vegetable. Raw fish served without rice is sashimi (Wikipedia).
Etymonline adds that the word originally referred to the rice, not the fish.
When was makizushi invented?
Makizushi came before nigiri, and the sources name no inventor or year. Mizkan’s company history has rolled sushi popular in Edo before Hanaya Yohei’s nigiri.
Wikipedia’s norimaki entry dates the first written use of the word to a 1750 cookbook, and a 1787 text lists it on Edo sushi shop menus.
When was gunkan-maki invented?
In 1941, when Hisaji Imada, first-generation owner of Kyubey in Ginza, wrapped a band of nori around rice to hold loose toppings such as salmon roe and sea urchin (Sushi Walker).
Traditionalists criticized it, and an NHK radio broadcast called it bizarre.
Why was fatty tuna once thrown away?
It spoiled quickly, and soy sauce marinating, the usual cure for tuna, did not work on it, so toro was often discarded. Sushi Walker says that reversed once freezing and refrigeration advanced.
Yoshino Sushi Honten in Nihonbashi began serving toro regularly in the 1920s or 30s (The Sushi Geek), and demand for bluefin rose in the 1960s (Wikipedia).
Where to Taste Each Stage of Sushi Today
Fermented narezushi survives as funazushi in Shiga. Counter shops serve Edomae nigiri, and the conveyor format lives on in kaiten-zushi chains.
Seek out funazushi first, because it depends on one lake-bound fish, the nigorobuna of Lake Biwa. Edomae nigiri and kaiten-zushi draw on many species and can wait.
Restocking nigorobuna has a hard limit. A 2012 Nippon Suisan Gakkaishi study found benefit-cost ratios of 12.0 for June releases of larvae and small juveniles into large reed zones and below 1.0 for releases of larvae and small juveniles outside them.
Because a batch ferments for 3 to 4 years at shops such as Souhonke Kitashina-rouho, a shortfall in the lake reaches shop counters years after the catch drops. This order holds as of October 2026 and loosens if the lake’s reed zones recover.
For a flavor baseline before ordering any of it, this guide to what sushi tastes like is the natural next read.
