Food Notes: 11/4
Tuna tataki, nutella shortages, oysters, books, and more!
It’s Tataki time. This dish of seared, thinly sliced fish or meat, dressed with vinegar is suddenly all the rage.
It’s Election Day in New York City, and by the time I finish writing this piece, we might have a new mayor. That also means New York City schools are closed—one of many extra holidays injected into the calendar leaving parents scrambling for childcare.
When the rest of the working-world is at their desks, it’s often confusing trying to explain to clients why there is a four-year-old running around in the background of your Zoom call. As you might imagine, that left us something of a bind today, and so instead of cooking, we walked over to our local Sushi restaurant.
We ordered some rolls and tempura vegetables, all pretty standard stuff, and then I decided to splurge on the Tuna Tataki. It’s a dish I had ordered from here before, and didn’t really give much thought to it until I got home and realized how gorgeous the presentation was.
About eighteen months ago, our local sushi restaurant installed a new light board sign including photos of their lesser known dishes. It was a bit garish, but this is primarily a take out restaurant. Regardless, the sign highlighted a new addition to the menu, tuna tataki.
The first time I ordered the Tataki, the pretty picture of thin-sliced tuna glowing gently in the dim dining room seduced me. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I love raw tuna, and put my faith in our local takeout sushi chef. The dish exceeded my expectations. there are variations, but the Tataki from my local sushi shop is made from seared tuna, thinly sliced, and served over finely chopped red onions. It’s topped with salmon roe and probably a dash of vinegar, and served with ponzu, a sweet, dark dipping sauce.
There’s a legend that the of the origin of Tataki begins with 19th-century Samurai. The story goes that Sakamoto Ryōma, a low ranking Samurai from the Tosa Domain, now in the Kōchi Prefecture, witnessed westerners grilling meats. Inspired by their efforts, he then began grilling fish. It’s thought early versions of the dish used Katsuo, or skipjack tuna, a smaller fish in the tuna family.
The term Tataki indicates a pounded or thinly sliced bit of meat. And Tataki isn’t just fish these days. Often it is made from beef tenderloin, sirloin, and ribeye.
That’s true in the United States, where the earliest example I could find for Tataki was for one made with beef. This reference first appears in 1985, from Tampa Bay, Florida. The St. Petersburg Times from May of 1985 includes a beef Tataki recipe in a collection of “Japanese style grilling” recipes.
The next references to Tataki through the 1990s are also in the Tampa Bay area. To be clear, this isn’t necessarily an exhaustive search, but Tataki is far more reported on in Florida generally than just about anywhere else in the United States, which seems like an odd food pathway.
Even though the first example is a beef Tataki, Americans eat Tuna Tataki in large part because of the explosive growth of sushi restaurants in the 1990s. For sure, there are examples of sushi in America from as early as the 1900s, especially in Los Angeles. And American restaurants in the post-war period gave us innovations like the California roll and, my personal favorite, the Philadelphia roll.
But by the 1990s though, there was seemingly a sushi restaurant in every mall food court in America. What ends up happening though when a food type or cuisine becomes so common that its lacks novelty, the natural evolution is to create buzz by introducing new recipes. Tataki is the perfect solution — its still raw, or nearly raw fish, but with the twist of a slightly different flavor, texture, and a few other garnishes.
Tataki finally started growing more popular in the 2000s, and was even served at the wedding of Howard Stern. And it’s from that period onward we see a lot more mentions of Tataki in restaurant reviews and recipes.
(Election Day Update: Polls closed three minutes ago and Decision Desk has called the election for our next Mayor, Zohran Mamdani)
It’s worth acknowledging, of course, that during this period of time, plenty of new American style restaurants served up seared tuna steaks, thinly sliced, in a vaguely Japanese-style, often with sesame and ginger flavors. While it was not necessary referred to as Tataki, whether intentionally or not, these dishes clearly drew inspiration from it. These seared tuna dishes were, and still are, wildly popular in upscale bistros and new American restuarants.
Meanwhile, in Spain, Japanese Tataki has met with Iberian pork. There’s no shortage of fish in Spain, and Tataki recipes made with tuna proved popular there in the 2010s as well. But locals also created a new dish made with pork. Variations on this dish typically use pork loin coated with soy sauce, ginger, and sesame seeds, but more innovations are taking place including adding flavors like pistachios.
(Curtis Sliwa has conceded)
We arrived at home with our take out sushi. The tuna Tataki was packed on top. I carefully removed it from the plastic box. It looked so beautiful with the pink fish, the golden searing, and the orange roe. It made me think: shouldn’t I just write about this so I can use this beautiful picture on the header? Turns out, Tataki had quite the food story behind it.
A Hastily Deduced Recipe for Tuna Tataki Inspired By Dinner
Ingredients
Tuna steak
½ cup minced ginger
½ cup sesame seeds
Some black pepper
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 red onion
A handful of scallions
Salmon roe (for garnish)
Cooking oil
For Dressing
Soy sauce
Dash of vinegar
Dash of oil
Dash of lime juice
Instructions
Instructions
Thinly slice red onion
Mix ginger, sesame, pepper, and lime juice
Season tuna with salt
Coat tuna with mixture
On high heat, sear the tuna on all sides in oil, about 30 seconds per side
Slice thinly
Combine dressing ingredients and beat vigorously
Add sliced red onion to dressing and plate
Layer thinly slice tuna on top of onions
Garnish with scallions and salmon roe
Serve with a side of Ponzu sauce
For a quicker recipe, order from Aburi Sushi. Meanwhile, The New York Times has called the race.
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