<story><title>Most Wasabi Is Fake [video]</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/585172/wasabi-fake/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tptacek</author><text>In high-end Japanese restaurants, you can often get real wasabi (it&amp;#x27;ll be listed at the bottom of the menu). My experience with it has been that it&amp;#x27;s usually coarser, more watery, and less pungent than the &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; wasabi. I do not prefer it; whatever combination of horseradish and mustard restaurants default to is, I think, the better product.&lt;p&gt;If I was eating wasabi on its own and trying to, I don&amp;#x27;t know, appreciate varietals of it, I&amp;#x27;d think differently. But for the most part I eat the little blobs of wasabi as a palate cleanser and never explicitly add it to my dishes, which I assume the cook already seasoned the way they wanted me to eat it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikekchar</author><text>Wow.  That&amp;#x27;s amazing to me (and also that so many responders agree).  I love wasabi!  It has a clean, sweet, chlorophyll taste to it.  However, there are a few caveats.&lt;p&gt;Real wasabi needs to be mashed, not grated.  If you cut the cell walls it doesn&amp;#x27;t produce the flavour properly.  You need to break the cell walls.  That&amp;#x27;s why you use a shark skin &amp;quot;grater&amp;quot; (and it&amp;#x27;s important to press hard and &amp;quot;grate&amp;quot; in a circular motion because you are really pulping it against the shark skin).&lt;p&gt;Secondly, the flavour of wasabi changes dramatically from the time it is &amp;quot;grated&amp;quot; and over the next 30 minutes.  It is very hot immediately after you grate it and gets progressively less hot over time.  After about 30 minutes it is practically tasteless.  It&amp;#x27;s super important to time the &amp;quot;grating&amp;quot; with the dish.  At my favourite izakaya, the master&amp;#x27;s son (who does the fish) &amp;quot;grates&amp;quot; the wasabi first, puts it on the plate, then cuts the fish, plates it and then gives you the dish.  This way the wasabi has reached it&amp;#x27;s peak flavour when you receive the dish.  You&amp;#x27;ve got about 5-10 minutes to eat it until it goes horrible.&lt;p&gt;Finally, the flavour varies considerably by season.  I find winter wasabi to be much sweeter than summer wasabi.&lt;p&gt;Now, at the risk of being slightly dismissive (which I don&amp;#x27;t intend to be), I buy fresh wasabi from time to time and prepare it for myself.  The result is exactly as you describe and I have to say that my efforts are largely not worth it.  I even live in Shizuoka so I have access to good wasabi!  The problem is that preparing wasabi requires the correct tools, the correct technique and practice -- none of which I have.  I wonder if it is possible that the examples you tried were possibly not the best...</text></comment>
<story><title>Most Wasabi Is Fake [video]</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/585172/wasabi-fake/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tptacek</author><text>In high-end Japanese restaurants, you can often get real wasabi (it&amp;#x27;ll be listed at the bottom of the menu). My experience with it has been that it&amp;#x27;s usually coarser, more watery, and less pungent than the &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; wasabi. I do not prefer it; whatever combination of horseradish and mustard restaurants default to is, I think, the better product.&lt;p&gt;If I was eating wasabi on its own and trying to, I don&amp;#x27;t know, appreciate varietals of it, I&amp;#x27;d think differently. But for the most part I eat the little blobs of wasabi as a palate cleanser and never explicitly add it to my dishes, which I assume the cook already seasoned the way they wanted me to eat it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>distantaidenn</author><text>Live in Tokyo and couldn&amp;#x27;t agree more.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been to Mt. Mitake a few times, where wasabi makes up a nice portion of the economy. Towards the top of the mountain, you can literally smell the wasabi in the air. It&amp;#x27;s kind of the locals&amp;#x27; gimmick as well to put wasabi in everything -- pretty sure I saw wasabi ice-cream.&lt;p&gt;The fresh &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; stuff is quite earthy, and frankly, I find unpleasant in any significant quantity. I bought quite a bit last time I was there and tried to learn to appreciate it. Ending up going bad in the fridge.&lt;p&gt;Give me good old horseradish any day.</text></comment>