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Other & modern neta

Everything outside the classic edomae buckets — salmon, escolar, and the modern arrivals that reshaped the menu.

Escolar

Escolar is a snake mackerel — not tuna at all — routinely sold as 'white tuna'. Buttery and delicious, but its wax esters can cause digestive distress, and it's banned in Japan.

Kanikama

Kanikama is imitation crab — surimi (usually pollock) shaped and dyed to mimic crab legs. It's what's in most 'crab' rolls, including the California roll. Not crab.

Salmon

Salmon (sake) is one of the world's most popular sushi fish — and one of the least traditional. Raw salmon sushi is a 1980s Norwegian invention, not edomae.

Shirako

Shirako is fish milt — the sperm sac, usually of cod — custardy, creamy and frankly divisive. A prized winter delicacy for the adventurous.

Shirauo

Shirauo is the Japanese icefish — a tiny, translucent whole fish eaten in early spring, often as gunkanmaki or, for the bold, alive. Not to be confused with shirasu.