Plastic Sushi Grass

What reason does this little piece of plastic grass serve? Decoration, duh.  After all, nothing increases the delicious presentation index like a little polyethylene terephthalate. 

But in this case, our petroleum product has an actual purpose and history.  The story behind plastic sushi grass (known on tatami mats as haran or baran) also has a story. Alice Gordenker, an American living in Tokyo and writer for The Japan Times, tells it nicely with the help of Ayao Okumura, a chef and food consultant.

Known on tatami mats as haran or baran, it's the modern, convenience- and cost-driven manifestation of an earlier, natural product.

Beginning in the Edo period, swank bento consumers valued food presentation to a level that seems unmatched in the modern era except perhaps by Ferran Adria of El Bulli or Grant Achatz of Chicago’s Alinea.  Not only did deftly cut bamboo leaves make the bento boxes look prettier, they also kept them prettier for longer. These benefits are lost with the plastic version, though.

When supermarkets swept across Japan in the mid 1960s and costs needed cutting, plastic was introduced as a cheaper and less labor-intensive alternative. Now it’s like a vestigial structure: once had a purpose, evolved some, and doesn’t really have one anymore. 

From our perspective, the major bummer is that it's a SUD we often can't decline. It's become as much as staple of take out sushi as seaweed, and to forgo plastic grass means to forgo your California roll. Being solely designed for the takeout container, it's also uniquely confined to one purpose and therefore even less reusable and repurposeable than your average SUD. 

So what, then, is the solution? Pick out the grass and hand it over to your neighborhood sushi chef? Boycott distastefully decorated sushi? Probably neither.  But if you've got a suggestion, I'd love to hear it.

Comments

[cocomama]

My solution is to ask for no grass. Pretty simple and works great. Except that time I asked for no plastic grass and the waitress looked at me like I had two heads....because they only used real leaves.