Both fish and rice are cheap, why is Sushi so ridiculously expensive?

Answer 1

On the next block, I can get all I can eat for $12.

Answer 2

Fish isn't cheap out here in the west.

Answer 3

The sushi uses special grade fish that is expensive. Also the techniques are specific for staff. Hope that helps.

Answer 4

try making it yourself and you'll figure it out

Answer 5

It's not the ingredients, it's the art that creates the dish. And sushi fish, is NOT cheap. Fish sticks are cheap. Sushi fish and other seafoods that go into sushi aren't. 

You pay for the knowledge, and the expertise--not the actual foods involved. 

Answer 6

Sushi is not just a Dish, rather it is  whole food experience. And to serve it properly, it takes Years of experience to master. 

Answer 7

Sushi rice isn't just rice, it is rice that is very specifically seasoned and prepared so it is delicately flavored and slightly, pefectly, sticky.  For really good sushi restaraunt rice, the preparation can be very time consuming.

Fish is not all created equal.  Most supermarket fish should never be eaten raw.  For sushi you need sushi grade fish, which is as close to still alive on your plate as possible.

I used to help with a local cooking school, we'd have a theme and a guest chef for each class.  The chef would do a presentation, then we'd break up into groups to do prep work, the re-assemble as a class and do the actual putting together of the meal, then eat it.

For our sushi classes we had a sushi master who had lived in Japan for decades and had been running a sushi restaraunt in our area for several years.  He spent SO MUCH TIME on safety of making sushi at home, stressing potential dangers and parasites, that I resolved to never make fish sushi at home, to go to those who understood the safety issues and pay out the nose to enjoy sushi without suffering some horrible parasitic infection.  

I have been an avid sushi consumer for four decades, although less in the last 10 years.  I've eaten at many sushi places and been lucky enough to live in an area with a couple real masters, so understand what a real sushi experience is.  It's not just fish and rice.

Making sushi is an art.  Even supermarket sushi can be done right or wrong.  At a local market I once shopped at the sushi was usually pretty good, then one night I got something that was cut wrong, every bite had a horrible chewy, stringy thing in it and it all ended up in the cats bowl.  When I wrote the store about it, they apologized but didn't offer a credit, I never got sushi there again.  Obviously someone who didn't know how to cut the fish had done the sushi that night.

So...as someone who knows sushi pretty well,  I'm telling you it is far more than fish and rice.  If you want to make your own sushi at home using your "cheap" ingredients, make sure your health insurance is up to date.

Answer 8

It takes years to learn to prepare it properly.  And if you think it's cheap go buy some Ahi Tuna that you won't be afraid to eat raw. 

Answer 9

You have to use sashimi grade fish to make sushi. If you don’t, someone can get food poisoning. 

Sashimi grade fish are caught off the deepest ocean where the water is extremely cold where parasites won’t survive. 

Answer 10

It is imported Eastern fish, you're paying for that, getting it to you.