Wasabi is a Japanese plant that is member of Brassicaceae family, including cabbage, radish, horseradish and mustard and is known also as “Japanese horseradish”, its root is used as a spice and has a extremely strong flavor alike hot mustard or spicy mustard.
From the wasabi plant you can get a green paste, which is used in Japanese cuisine and is known by the same name of the plant.
Even a small amount of wasabi paste, with its vapors can stimulate, from the toungue, a passage to the nose to reach the brain, causing a mild localized, but intense, feeling of pain.
In some individuals it may even cause tearing or coughing. According to a publication in the American journal, PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), researchers from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Florence, argue that a regular consumption of wasabi would be able to raise the threshold of pain perception, thanks to effect of wasabi receptor.
From this plant is also possible to be obtained wine, liquor and beer.
The wasabi paste is often used with raw fish, but in Japan, wasabi can also be found in the form of lip balm flavor, wasabi mayonnaise, roasted peanuts in a crunchy coating of wasabi, chewing gum wasabi, wasabi ice cream and wasabi cake, chocolate wasabi, wasabi soda, wasabi chips. Wasabi chips are popular in Asia and can be found also in China, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand.
In fact there was an impact advertisement of wasabi chips from Singapore with the slogan “Wakes You Up With Every bite”, where the testimonials suffered intensely, tortured by their beloved snacks.
In 2008 the French chef Pierre Hermé, inspired by wasabi has proposed a series of dishes that combine haute cuisine sweet flavor with its extremely strong taste.
Wasabi chips
Wasabi chocolate
Wasabi Gumballs
Wasabi Icecream
Wasabi Lip Balm
Wasabi Mayonnaise
Wasabi peanuts
Wasabi Pierre Herm
Wasabi Soda
Wasabi Sushi
Wasabi Alarm
Ciao! My name is Dominique. I’m Italian and I’m proud to be a mix. My father was an Italian chemical engineer and high school teacher, with Greek and Polish heritage. My mother is Haitian, she was high school language teacher, with Dominican, Spanish, French, Portuguese, African and Native American heritage. Being a mix makes me appreciate to want to understand different cultures and lifestyles. I grew up in Italy, lived few years in Haiti, travel around main European capitals, lived seven years in China, six in Spain and UK. Traveling makes me feel that we can learn something from every situation in every part of the world.
