Everyone’s had wasabi with their “dragon roll”, *authentically* mixed into their ceramic tray of soy sauce, right?
Spoiler alert: that little ball of bright green stuff is not wasabi.
Real wasabi is extremely difficult to cultivate, and hence extremely expensive. It grows in stream beds primarily in only three prefectures in Japan, and the wasabi plant itself (the condiment is grated from the stem, by the way) is quite delicate. Even in Japan, unless you’re eating at high-end restaurants, it’s likely you’ll be getting the fake stuff. I had the treat of tasting real wasabi on a couple of occasions: at a hole-in-the-wall soba shop in the quaint Pontocho Alley of Kyoto, and with one of my dishes of the 14-course kaiseki dinner.
So what’s actually in the “wasabi” you get at your local Japanese restaurant? It’s a combination of horseradish, mustard, and green food coloring.
And how does real wasabi taste? The pungency and burning were there, but real wasabi lacks the sweet flavor you taste with the horseradish stuff. The texture is different, too, since you’re literally eating the grated stem of a plant.
