By: Dia Vaswani

One type of food that a lot of people love is sushi, but have you ever wondered how it was made? Well, this is the myth, according to me, of what happened to make this delicious dish, something that to this day is still eaten by many.

Long, long ago in a Japanese village named, Kitashiobara, there was a time when magic was real. People in the village were bored of the typical and basic food that they had to eat every day: chicken noodle soup. So, they prayed to the God of Food, Fudo, for a new, creative, & delicious dish which they would have an unlimited supply of. So, Fudo made two new beings: rice and seaweed. Then, in Kitashiobara, the people could see grains of rice and seaweed walking around everywhere.

The people were mad and they thought, how could these new beings who casually walk around our village give us food. Fudo was very angry that these people had no patience. He wanted to stop his gift, but it was too late. Rice and seaweed had already become best friends and no one could get in their way. Fodu thought, I am a God and I could manipulate their friendship but is that really the best way to be a role model as a god?

Rice and seaweed had just gotten ready for a picture. They were sticking together for a pose, and this was Fodu’s new idea for food, rice and seaweed.  Now, he had no choice but to add more to this plain dish. He was the God of Food after all and perfecting food was basically his job. “Unless,” he thought, “I separate them by making it rain.”

Fodu was about to press the button to make it rain up from heaven. But he made a mistake, and instead of causing water to fall from the sky, he made seafood fall from the sky. The people of Kitashiobara got confuzzled. They thought, “is meat really falling from the sky?” Everyone gathered around in the middle of the village to see what on earth was going on. The seafood kept pouring from the sky. Everyone had heard the expression, ”raining cats and dogs,” but nobody had ever heard the expression, ”raining seafood.”

When it finally stopped raining seafood, there was seafood everywhere around the village. While rice and seaweed were taking their picture, instead of getting separated since it hadn’t rained water, the seafood had stuck in the middle of rice and seaweed! The people of the village watched this miracle happen before their eyes. They quickly ran to the dish and ate it, immediately falling in love with it.  At first, they thought it was a bit sour because of the seaweed. So, they decided to call it sushi, which means “it’s sour,” and from that day, it was a very popular food in Japan. And, it is still eaten to this day, worldwide.