Nigirizushi (æ¡ã‚Šå¯¿å¸, lit. hand-formed sushi) consists of an oblong mound of sushi rice that the chef presses into a small rectangular box between the palms of the hands, usually with a bit of wasabi, and a topping draped over it. Unlike sashimi, which is almost always eaten with chopsticks, nigirizushi is traditionally eaten with the fingers, even in formal settings
Wasabi is often served with sushi or sashimi, usually accompanied with soy sauce.
Soy sauce is a condiment produced by fermenting soybeans with Aspergillus oryzae and Aspergillus soyae molds, along with water and salt. All varieties of soy sauce are salty, earthy, brownish liquids intended to season food while cooking or at the table. Soy sauce has a distinct basic taste called umami (旨味, literally “delicious taste”) in Japanese.
Fugu is a Japanese dish prepared from the meat of pufferfish (normally species of Takifugu, Lagocephalus, or Sphoeroides) or porcupinefish of the genus Diodon. Because pufferfish is lethally poisonous if prepared incorrectly, fugu has become one of the most celebrated and notorious dishes in Japanese cuisine.
Tsukiji (築地) is a district of Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan, the site of the Tsukiji fish market. Literally meaning “reclaimed land,” it lies near the Sumida River on land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay in the 1700s, during the Edo period.
People unfamiliar with wasabi will expect wasabi to burn the tongue, hence, the sudden, searing pain in one’s sinuses will come as a shock to new consumers of the spice. However, the true wasabi makes the tongue feel cool. The eater will also naturally expect that more wasabi means a more intense pain, however it is the amount of wasabi vapor that reaches the sinuses that will determine how much pain one will experience. Sinus pain will start quickly, and end quickly; unlike habanero pepper, for instance, that will gradually reduce its painful intensity over time. People with particularly sensitive sinuses should use caution when eating wasabi since those with pre-existing conditions might experience sinus inflammation as a result of the irritation by the wasabi vapor.
Russian roulette is a name given to a potentially lethal form of gambling. The game is so rare as to be almost mythical there are far more depictions of the game in film and literature than there are real games which have ever taken place. Participants of Russian Roulette place a single round in a chamber of a revolver. A revolver almost always contains six chambers, and once the round is placed, the cylinder is spun rapidly and then closed (put back into the gun) so that the identity of the loaded chamber is unknown to anyone. The player then places the revolver to his temple and pulls the trigger, accepting a one in six chance of death. The game is played for various reasons, often as a form of high-stakes gambling before a crowd of bettors, or sometimes as a show of bravado before a witness or as a form of less-culpable suicide, performed alone or with others. Russian Roulette is a highly secretive practice, and the number of deaths caused by it is unknown although likely to be negligible as the game owes more to urban myth than reality.
