How does freshwater fish sashimi become edible?

A travel letter by Tarjei Brekke

When salmon shows up as a conversation topic in China, one can almost count on one hand the number of sentences exchanged before one party drops the line:

“I have heard that they farm rainbow trout in Xinjiang.”

This line is then immediately followed by:

“You cannot eat that one raw.”

Curious, you inquire as to why:

“It is because it is a freshwater fish. You cannot eat freshwater fish raw.”

The statement is difficult to challenge. There are a plethora of stories in the now and then of people who have caught parasites or diseases from eating raw or undercooked foods. There are many valid reasons to be skeptical towards them, especially in environments which frequently exceed tropical moisture and temperature levels. And yet, why are they so insistent on the impossibility of ingesting freshwater fish when saltwater fish sashimi besieges nearly every urban settlement in China?

One answer is that, to many Chinese young and old, the consumption of uncooked foods – sometimes even vegetables and fruit – exposes the body to unnecessary risk, whether this be from diseases or from excessive cooling of the body.

Another one is that still to a majority of people in China, freshwater fish is the norm. Carps, Mandarin fish, bass, eel – when you say “fish”, these are generally what come to mind. In almost all parts of the country, these are primarily served cooked. To eat them raw is to some unimaginable and to others, reminiscent of their exposure to fringe regional culinary curiosities that they may have seen on TikTok.

A third is that sashimi, for the most part, came into China as a new and fashionable wave of foreign seafood, augmented with marketing highlighting the importance of omega-3 and DHA (conveniently called “deep-sea fish oil” in Chinese) and gradually incorporating imagery of frozen, pristine nature the likes of which can only be witnessed in the Himalayas. Inseparable from the ocean, the sashimi wave pushes a narrative that raw fish from the sea is edible due to an absence of parasites, strong environmental governance and high-tech packaging and logistics.

Yet if you trace the fringes and follow the weird, you will quickly find that freshwater fish is consumed in its uncooked state in several regions in China, many of which frequently surpass tropical temperatures. The question then becomes: How?

Guangxi yusheng in Yangzhou

Say hello to Guangxi yusheng, made from the peach-white flesh of the phoenix barb (Spinibarbus denticulatus denticulatus). The phoenix barb is supposedly the utmost luxury among yusheng enthusiasts – at least according to those trying to sell it to you. The texture is soft yet lean and it carries a gentle, refreshing flavour. Therefore, the fish comes with an array of condiments to bolster the experience with different textures, flavours, smells and colours. Starting from the carrots on the left and moving clockwise, you have garlic, potato sticks, shallots, chopped chilies, spring onion, peanuts, dried Chinese yam, pickled onions, pickled prunes, pickled vegetables, cucumber sticks, mint, Thai mint, cilantro and, finally, radish. Atop the fish in the middle sits a small nest of lemongrass.

To have a bite is a journey in and of itself: You start by mixing a dip for the fish, consisting of peanut oil, white pepper, soy sauce and sesame seeds (the waiter did it for us). Then you fill a plastic cup with all the condiments you can stomach (I had everything but the chilies, pretty much). Then you dip some fish in the sauce, sit it atop the mountain of toppings and, once ready, you bundle it all between your chopsticks and stuff it inside your mouth like a child eating a brownie. You are hit by a myriad of flavours: cooling mint, sour pickles, salty soy and burning garlic. The fish is there in texture and hardly in flavour. It is delicious, but is it safe to eat? Before we take our first bite, Wanhao and his friends dribble between themselves and me on who should take the first bite. Another at our table looks at the fish between his chopsticks, almost paralysed. He takes a small bite and orders instead a bowl of rice topped with salmon sashimi, which he eats with gusto. At the table next to us, a pair of middle-aged men are smoking and drinking while they feast on raw carp. We ask them why they feel like it is safe. The answer is obvious: “Wine!” they exclaim with roaring laughter. I would have passed it off if not for the fact that I have heard that explanation many times: Fear the parasites? No problem! Just huck down a couple of glasses of baijiu and you will be safe.

On their side, the restaurant pointed to the fact that this fish was shipped alive by airplane all the way from Guangxi, where it has been farmed under strict supervision. It had lived without eating for two months, floating in a tank in the restaurant which filtered its water 24/7. They are slaughtered only when the order is given by the customer, and they are bled and sliced up in the kitchen right there. There are only a few fish per tank, so they have a lot more space than a typical fish restaurant in the Yangzhou area. By their logic, this fish could hardly be fresher. The store clerk does not hesitate in sending me the restaurant’s food safety reports either, signed by local authorities.

Yet food safety still cannot save you from overeating. In a valiant effort to try a wide selection from their menu, we order too much, and that evening and the following morning should not be further documented in writing.

Hezhe/Nanai shashengyu on the Russian border

In Eastern Siberia and North Eastern China (henceforth Dongbei) live a small ethnic minority known as the Nanai, or Hezhe in Chinese. They are described as hunter-fisher-gatherer-farmers (I mean, who wasn’t?), most notable for their birch bark tents, ice fishing and fish skin clothing. They number in all fewer than 3 000 within China’s borders, most living in the cities in Dongbei. I have travelled up to Fuyuan on the Russian-Chinese river border, the Amur/Heilongjiang, to study Pacific salmon. While I find Pacific salmon being sold all over – mostly to tourists in the form of jerky or as dried whole fish – me and my companion Aunt Liao eventually make our way out of Fuyuan city to a Hezhe cultural town, a drive away to a tributary to the Amur River, the Ussuri. Despite the location, the overwhelming majority of Fuyuan’s inhabitants are not Hezhe, but Han Chinese, and we arrive at the cultural town to find that it is mainly a cabin community for tourists.

As we slowly stroll around this community which in large parts resemble a European suburb, we begin to feel peckish and so move to one of the community restaurants, the Hezhe Food Hall. The staff are all local Han who work as farmers in the off-season and run the restaurant during tourist season. We’re in luck – not only is it a national holiday, but the number of tourists coming here is quite low. We have the restaurant largely to ourselves for a time. We decide to check out the menu, and their specialty is river fish. We initially consider trying out some Pacific salmon, but as with most fish restaurants in China, if you order fish, you are getting the whole thing. A Pacific salmon, even a small one, is quick to surpass four kilos. That is just not manageable for us. We order a Mandarin fish instead – steamed. Then I recognize a term on the menu – shashengyu – “sliced raw fish”. I inquire as to what that is and the waiter explains that it is raw carp mixed with potatoes, cabbage, herbs, salt and chili oil. It is also meant as an exquisite sort of dish. I order one as well.

The shashengyu arrives before the bass and gives off a wonderful smell of fresh chili oil and chopped cilantro. The fish has some bite to it – sometimes it borders on chewy. The manager arrives after a while and, seeing that I am foreigner, sits down to have a chat. We talk for some time and I learn that, had I come back in September during salmon fishing season, I could have tried Pacific salmon sashimi using wild salmon. I then eventually ask, “How is it safe to eat these fish without cooking them?”

The manager gives a small smile – he has heard this question before. “There is no pollution in the Ussuri river.”

Rainbow trout in Lijiang

Lijiang sits at around 3000 metres over sea level in the southwestern province of Yunnan, around an hour’s drive from the more charismatic town of Shangri-La. A tourist town through and through, even the off-season in Lijiang sees a steady flow of outsiders come to walk around the bustling Old Town or take the gondola up to the now mostly dimished glaciers atop Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. I have a different purpose here, however – predictably, I have come to study salmon, or at least what the locals call “salmon” (sanwenyu). Like in Xinjiang, as was mentioned in the introduction, Lijiang also farms “salmon”, though it is not Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Instead, it is rainbow trout (Oncorhyncus mykiss), a smaller salmonid originally from Western North America. Rainbow trout has been cultivated in Europe and North America for well over a century at this point, first in the form of river seeding and then gradually to cage farming. In Lijiang it has been farmed since the late 1990s.

Rainbow trout, like many other salmonids, prefer cold water. This water comes in the form of snowmelt from the glaciers around Lijiang. Lijiang, being situated so far south, does not have much of a winter either, meaning that the snowmelt remains quite consistent throughout the year. It is farmed in so-called “flow-through systems”, meaning that the water comes in on one end, passes through the pools in the farm and is breathed in by the fish, collects waste and whatnot and then runs out in the other end. In Norway this is the most common system for sites rearing salmon smolt (“teen” salmon).

Rainbow trout in Lijiang is served almost like salmon sashimi – accompanied by soy sauce, wasabi and, deviating from the formula, sushi vinegar. A crucial difference, however, is that when you buy a plate of salmon, you will just get the salmon sashimi – done deal. When you buy a plate of rainbow trout, however, the clerk will ask a follow-up question: “Would you like the bones as soup or fried?” That’s right – you are buying the whole fish. 95 to 105 yuan per jin (half-kilo). The rainbow trout will be prepared as yi yu san chi – “one fish three eats”. The flesh will be sliced into sashimi; the bones will be cooked into soup (or fried into fish sticks); and the skin will be deep-fried into something resembling pork cracklings.

We ask for their smallest one and the clerk says that we have two choices, then – a small but pricier golden trout (sub-breed of rainbow trout) which would be around three jin, or a small and cheaper rainbow trout sitting at around four jin. We are three people, but one jin each is still a lot of food. We pick the golden trout. The clerk walks out into the back, which is a sight in and of itself: The farm is part of the restaurant.

The clerk and two others, each armed with a net, go over to the pools with the mature and food-ready fish and start fishing. Back and forth our negotiations flow:

“Is this one alright?”

“How big is it?”

“Maybe three and a half jin?”

“Do you have a smaller one?”

A splash as he releases the fish back into the water. Then comes another one. In the neighbouring pool, one of the clerk’s partners tries to toss his net down under a bridge and almost loses his balance doing so. “Xiaoxin a!” cautions the clerk – “careful now”. It takes a good ten minutes for them to find a fish that we can stomach. They bring it, still flopping, into the kitchen, and a few minutes later comes a sun-like disk of pinkish white trout sashimi layered atop a hill of crushed ice. A hot plate and a pot of chicken soup follow, as well as a steel bowl of the bones, fins, head and tail of the trout. These are to be cooked and flavour the soup. Some time later come the fried skin.

Rainbow trout is much skinnier than salmon, and the style of preparation reflects this. Rather than the thumb-thick salmon cuts often served in Japanese restaurants in Shanghai under names like “the great fat” or “fat belly”, the rainbow trout is sliced into window-pane sheets like that of ham. In this way, a surprising amount of that buttery salmon smoothness is maintained while remaining refreshing rather than overpowering. There are some thick-cut pieces atop the disk and upon eating those, one immediately understands why the trout is so thinly sliced.

The yi yu san chi style is also an inclusive form of dining. For those who do not like raw fish, the hotpot in the middle offers an alternative. My companions, being much fonder of cooked fish than raw, will take the raw fish, dip it into the hotpot for a breath, and then pull it back out. In the blink of an eye, the thin slice is cooked through and can be enjoyed as any other lightly boiled fish.

At one of the establishments we visit, I ask the owner about how this fish becomes safe to eat. The owner, Mr. Le, pauses to suck in a lungful of cigarette smoke and then explains, “A lot of people will ask about whether rainbow trout is safe to eat or not, but actually, you can eat raw rainbow trout from anywhere where it’s farmed in China. It’s all about the environment.” The heavy industries of the Chinese heartland never made it to Yunnan during the industrialization. This is seen by many as a sign that Yunnan is a clean and pristine land, untainted by the pollution of the north and east. 

Guangdong yusheng in Shunde

The last stop on the journey is Shunde in Guangdong, a regional foodie capital if you like a little less mainstream food. For instance, one of the local specialties which you can get almost anywhere is fish skin mixed with herbs and chili oil. No meat, no bones – just the skin. I have come to study yusheng which I have already by now encountered a number of times, but here is where I can try it within its own locality. Shunde yusheng has been around for centuries, serving as a food of the well-to-do for feasts and fine occasions. Yet also it has changed considerably with the economic growth of the region.

We visit a restaurant in the district known as Daliang. This restaurant has been around for decades and serves mainly locals, most of whom come to eat yusheng.

Also here they employ the yi yu san chi method. We order seabass, because the restaurant clerk says that that is what they would recommend to tourists. Locals typically eat grass carp, but tourists typically cannot stomach the boney texture, she says. The seabass flesh is then cut into snow-like flakes; the bones are fried into fish sticks and the rest is cooked into rice porridge.

Once the fish is served, a different clerk comes over to help us mix the fish. Unlike in Guangxi, here in Shunde, the fish is premixed in a large bowl or on a plate from which people can then help themselves. She mixes oil, salt, soy sauce, carrots, onions, shallots, garlic, pickled garlic, radish, lemongrass, pickles, yam, ginger and chilies. Then she asks if we are familiar with the Guangdong yusheng Lunar New Year ritual. I am not, so she explains that, as she tosses the fish, it symbolizes fortune: lao qi lao qi, feng sheng shui qi. “Lift it up, lift it up, the wind blows and water kicks”. Me, not knowing Cantonese, cannot quite grasp the pun or significance of the phrase, but clap nonetheless.

The store owner eventually comes over at our request for an interview. The interview is short and concise – she is still at work – but she shares with us her story with yusheng and that of her restaurant. She has eaten yusheng all her life, but it wasn’t as elaborate when she was young: they had salt and ginger for condiments and not much else. When I eventually come to the questions on healthiness, she says that the fish has been raised at a farm which she has collaborated with for many, many years, one overseen by the government at that. To further still my curiosity, she says that she knows many customers who have checked themselves for parasites year after year after coming here, and not a single one has found anything.

Once again, we had ordered the fish and so got the whole fish. I shudder to think of how much food has been tossed away on the warpath of my research, but I am sorry – I am not eating two kilos of bass for lunch.

Conclusion

The safety of raw freshwater fish seems inseparable from the state of China’s water pollution levels. Many consumers will typically shun farmed fish, hailing wild fish as the only sort which is safe to eat – albeit cooked. Though in spite of this, the vast majority of fish eaten in China is today farmed, a majority which continues to grow year by year. In this sense, it seems almost strange that much of the raw freshwater fish that I ate during my stay was, indeed, farmed. However, this only highlights the layered nature of fish farming, revealing skepticism towards scaling, industrialization, capitalist modes of production and the overall involution (neijuan) of the Chinese food economy. In the rat race of the agrifood business, consumer trust falls on those who have their stories in order: The purity of Norwegian salmon fjords and Lijiang Himalayan glacier water trout; the strict and thorough management of Guangxi and Guangdong yusheng carp farming; the pristine and untouched water of the fringe and underdeveloped Ussuri valley. Healthiness came as a display of freshness and pristineness – the fish being killed on the spot followed by stories of its origin. Viewed through a constructivist lens, it becomes clear that the healthiness of raw fish is just as much a question of escaping the feral and uncontrolled foodscapes of everyday life as a genuine question of harm or benefit to the body.

All photos by Tarjei Brekke