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 Stalking the Elusive Wasabi
By Larry W. Greenly, Fiery-Foods & Barbecue Magazine
Scenario One: You're in a classy Japanese restaurant eating sushi. You dip each sushi in soy sauce. You lay a slice of ginger on top. Then you plop on some green wasabi paste. You take a bite and the mother of all fires incinerates your sinuses. Whooooee! The wasabi takes away your breath and clears out your sinuses. You can't even speak for a moment. But wasabi's ethereal fire is astonishingly short-lived, unlike the effect of capsaicin in chile peppers.
Scenario Two: You like the restaurant's wasabi so much you drop by an Asian market on the way home and buy a bag of pale green wasabi powder for a couple of bucks. Later, you mix the powder with water and wait a few minutes for the flavor to develop. The water brightens the powder to a bright green - just like at the restaurant. You taste it - it tastes just like what you had at the restaurant. Whooooee! It takes your breath away - just like at the restaurant.
Okay, class. Quiz time. Which of the above scenarios features genuine wasabi? Sorry, you've been had. Believe it or not, the answer is neither.
If "wasabi" appears as a powder or a paste, you can pretty much bet it's actually what the Japanese refer to as seiyo or "Western wasabi," a mixture of ordinary horseradish, Chinese mustard, a little cornstarch, and some green food coloring. The phony wasabi is tasty in its own right, but it's only a pale imitation of the real thing.
On the other hand, if a nubby, little green carrot appears at your table, with a fine-toothed grater, then you can rest assured you have the real thing. Both you - and, sorry to say - your wallet will notice the difference, but wasabi aficionados say it's well worth the extra cost. They say the taste of genuine wasabi is like a warm explosion that quickly fades away to a slightly sweet afternote.
Assuming you can find the real thing, expect to pay between $70 and $100 per pound. At seven to ten roots per pound, you can see how one little root can cost at least eight to ten dollars. Even in Japan, only an estimated five percent of sushi shops can afford to use fresh wasabi.
Practice Safe Food: Use Condiments
Wasabi's beneficial properties have long been recognized in Japan, where it was recorded in a medical encyclopedia as early as the 10th century. Wasabi has been used for many years as a condiment with noodles, sushi, and particularly sashimi, where its antibiotic properties may help prevent food poisoning from the raw fish.
Modern researchers are finding new uses for wasabi and the chemicals it contains. For example, wasabi's heat comes from isothiocyanates, powerful antioxidants that may be useful as antibacterial agents, and for treating or preventing blood clotting and asthma, as well as stomach, breast, and prostate cancer. Wasabi has even been found to prevent tooth decay. (One can only imagine wasabi toothpaste!)
Industry has also discovered that wasabi makes excellent non-fouling marine paint and even a wood preservative that replaces poisonous arsenates. But until wasabi's price drops dramatically, don't hold your breath for these or similar innovations.
How to Handle the Real Stuff
If you're lucky enough to locate some genuine wasabi, select only fresh, unshriveled roots. Wrap them in damp paper towels and store in the refrigerator up to 30 days. Rinse with cold water once a week and trim away any dark edges before using.
Wasabi's unique flavor is best enjoyed if it's grated on a very fine grater. Ceramic or stainless steel graters work well, but wasabi lovers believe the best flavor, texture and consistency result from using a traditional sharkskin grater called an oroshi.
When wasabi is grated, it releases volatile compounds that gradually dissipate with exposure to air. Grating wasabi is an exacting art. The root must even be held at a 90-degree angle to the grater, which allows the volatile compounds to develop with minimal exposure to air. Only enough should be grated that can be consumed within 15 to 20 minutes - before the flavor disappears.
How to Grate Wasabi
1.) Rinse the wasabi under cold, running water.
2.) Working toward yourself, scrape off any bumps using the back of a knife.
3.) Gently scrub with a stiff brush to dislodge any dirt.
4.) Cut the root just below the leaf stem.
5.) Hold the root at a 90-degree angle to the grater and grate, using a circular motion.
6.) Gather into a ball and wait a minute for it to develop its heat and flavor.
7.) Enjoy within 15 to 20 minutes.
Why Wasabi Is So Expensive and Hard to Find
Wasabi (Wasabia japonica) is a perennial plant, a member of the mustard family, and a cousin to cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. All parts of the plant can be used, including the leaves, which are sometimes pickled or used to flavor other foods. But it's the below-ground stem - the rhizome - that's the most sought-after part. The rhizome (usually called a "root") is what's grated into a pasty condiment for raw fish, sushi, or noodles.
Native to Japan, wasabi grows naturally in or near cold, shaded mountain streams with just the right mineral balance. Wasabi has been cultivated in Japan since the 10th century, but is notoriously difficult to grow. Outdoor cultivated wasabi plants require a constant supply of cool, running water, a loose gravel bed, and shade from trees or cloth to protect their leaves from sunburn.
In Japan, growers have learned to construct wasabi beds up to three feet deep using graduated sizes of gravel placed alongside cold streams and precisely arranged so water runs through them in a uniform pattern. The last beds in Japan, however, were reportedly built more than 200 years ago.
Wasabi is grown from transplants, taking about eighteen months to mature to its marketable size: one and a half inches in diameter and six inches long. Field wasabi may take as much as three years or more to mature.
Plants grown in mountain streams are known as sawa (semi-aquatic) wasabi; those grown in fields are known as oka (field) wasabi. Sawa wasabi is considered superior in both taste and appearance and usually commands higher prices than the oka variety.
The Holy Grail, though, has always been to grow wasabi in a greenhouse setting. Over the years, many researchers have attempted to grow wasabi hydroponically - with a marked lack of success - and some were convinced that wasabi couldn't be grown by any methods except those traditionally used in Japan. Fortunately, some researchers were too stubborn to give up and finally succeeded in coaxing wasabi to not only grow outside Japan, but in greenhouses under controlled conditions.
The Pacific Northwest, with its cool, damp climate, proved to be an ideal place to grow wasabi, but the main problem even there was to fool wasabi into thinking it was growing in Japan. Eventually some industrious wasabi pioneers worked out all the kinks with correct growing media, temperatures, nutrients, and water flow. Nowadays, several firms outside Japan sell fresh wasabi to consumers.
Wasabi Sources
• Pacific Farms, located in Oregon, was one of the pioneers in greenhouse cultivation of wasabi. The firm started in 1991 by importing wasabi plants from Japan. After five years of research and development (meanwhile experiencing an incredible amount of industrial espionage concerning their growing methods) they harvested their first test crop, growing plants for their specially-designed recirculating hydroponics system. By 1997, they began year-round, weekly harvesting of fresh wasabi for sale to wholesale companies and high-end restaurants.
• By 2000 Pacific Farms scaled back their commercial production (which they hope to restart in the near future), but they still grow plants for customers who want to grow wasabi as a hobby (six live plants for $22.95 plus shipping). Currently, they also import frozen wasabi roots, which they make into fresh wasabi paste and sell in 1.5 oz tubes (six tubes for $24.95 plus shipping). Phone 1-800-927-2248 x313 or www.freshwasabi.com.
• Their Real Wasabi Paste in tubes is supposedly very similar in taste and heat to freshly-grated wasabi, including a limited life-span. It must be shipped frozen via FedEx. The tubes can be stored for a year if frozen, or 60 days refrigerated. Once opened, the paste must be used within 30 days.
• Pacific Coast Wasabi, Ltd., located in Vancouver, British Columbia, is another firm that sells fresh wasabi. The company grows its wasabi in fourteen acres of greenhouses, using a proprietary hydroponic system and medium that tricks the plants into thinking they're growing in a stream.
• Pacific Coast circumvented the difficulty of obtaining wasabi seeds - they cost a dollar apiece from the Japanese government - by developing their own technique of producing seeds. But it's a painfully slow process, taking two years for a plant to produce seeds.
• The firm sells its wasabi to up-scale Japanese, Asian, and North American markets and to pharmaceutical and industrial researchers for biochemical studies. Demand for wasabi always far exceeds supply, but, eventually, the firm expects to reveal their growing process to help provide a steady supply of fresh wasabi worldwide. They may be reached at (604) 682-4576 or www.wasabia.ca.
• Halfway around the world, New Zealand Wasabi Ltd., has developed a patented growing system for producing high-quality wasabi anywhere in the world. In 1991, they started growing wasabi on the North Island of New Zealand. After a few disastrous growing trials, they developed a new system that consistently yields high-quality plants in a fifteen month period, weighing as much as two pounds, and with less than a two percent mortality rate.
• To date, New Zealand Wasabi has achieved yields of 20,000 pounds per acre, but they believe further development will double that. Their growing system is available as a franchise opportunity for wannabe wasabi growers. For further information, see their website at www.wasabi.co.nz.
• If you prefer something more homespun, Frogfarm Wasabi, located in Seattle, makes growing wasabi sound like no big deal. They say they grow their wasabi outdoors in compost under shade cloth, protect the plants from slugs and snails, and spray the plants once or twice a day to maintain soil moisture and humidity. Frogfarm sells bare root plants to hobby growers and others, and includes detailed growing instructions on how to grow 6-inch roots in 18 to 24 months. Cost is $7.50 per plant plus $5 shipping for every three plants. Contact them at (206) 361-1981 or www.wasabifarm.com.
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