Why do we season rice with vinegar to make sushi?

You might wonder why the Japanese season rice with vinegar. It actually goes back to the origin of sushi. The literal meaning of sushi means “sour flavor”. Historically, the way people stored fish was by wrapping it in fermented rice. When they were ready to enjoy the fish, the fermented rice was actually tossed away. Sometime between the 1300s and 1500s, the Japanese slowly stopped using fermented rice and instead added vinegar to the rice to further increase the shelf life. The vinegar made the rice taste good as well so they started to eat the fish and the rice together, which evolved to today’s sushi.

These days with refrigeration there is no longer the issue of fish being spoiled, but the centuries of sushi rice’s umami flavor with the vinegar being added stayed. Here is Sushi rice recipe.