Sushi rolls are big in America, really big! They seem to have displaced so many other forms of sushi, and certainly dominate the menus at most American sushi bars. While bemoaned by coastal dwelling purists, the emergence of sushi rolls has been both neccessary and inevitable. Sushi rolls enabled sushi to penetrate rural America. But [...]

Back in the third and fourth centuries there were fermented rice drinks, but they were crude and not really the same type of beverage that we think of today as saké. By the fifth or sixth century the favorite alcoholic beverage in Japan was a drink similar to modern saké, made from rice, water, and [...]