The Truth About Chopsticks

Last night I hosted a Sushi Concierge dinner for a family of four, including a young man who was 12 years old. He turned out to be quite the gourmand, keen on the very traditional types of sushi we tried. But he hadn’t yet completely mastered chopsticks. When we started the meal he was worried about this, which gave me the perfect opportunity to share one of my favorites sushi tips: don’t worry, no chopsticks.

True sushi aficionados in Japan seldom use chopsticks to eat sushi. They use their fingers. What a revelation!

And there’s a fascinating reason why. The primary form of sushi eaten in Japan is nigiri—the little hand-packed balls of rice with a slice of fish on top. What most of us don’t realize is that nigiri shouldn’t be packed too tightly. Rather, part of the fun of eating a nigiri is that it should fall to pieces on your tongue. Believe it or not, a sign of perfectly-made sushi is that it’s packed so loosely that it barely holds together until you get it in your mouth.

To eat such loose sushi, you have to know what you’re doing, and you should use your fingers to pick it up—all of them! In fact, chopsticks are probably the worst possible tool for this task. You’d be better off with a shovel. If you insist on eating nigiri with chopsticks, as in the picture above, the chef has to squeeze the rice together extra tight so it won’t break apart. To a sushi gourmand, such tightly-packed rice is a travesty.

Sadly, therefore, most Americans have never eaten a proper nigiri, because most chefs pack the sushi so tight that it’s like biting into a piece of Play Doh—and they do that because they think that we think that we’re supposed to use chopsticks. What a waste!

So next time you’re sitting at a good sushi bar, you can try asking the chef to pack the sushi more loosely, and explain that you’re planning to eat with your fingers. Indeed, when the staff at a good sushi bar sees that you’re eating with your fingers, they may even provide a damp towel or small wet cloth folded into a point, so you can wipe your fingers clean between different types of fish.

A final note, though: sushi aficionados do use chopsticks when eating sashimi—the slices of raw fish without rice.