Although Japanese food is mainly raw fish, crude vegetables and rice, there are many ways of combining them into different forms of sushi, and each combination has a name and special preparation. This list shows the most popular sushi types among the occidental people.
Hashi
Those are the wooden chopsticks used to eat Japanese food. It is said that the contact with metal from fork and knife may corrupt the sushi taste.
Nori
Algae sheet used to bind the rice with the raw fish.
Gari
It's sliced ginger. Japanese eat it between one sushi and the next to clean the taste, so the first sushi doesn't interfere with the taste of the next one.
Wasabi
It's a condiment made from the powder of the root of the plant above. This spicy condiment usually is mixed in the shoyu sauce and enhances the fish taste.
Sashimi
Mainly, raw fish slices. The popular ones are salmon and tuna, and the noble part is the fish's belly. For someone who is just beginning to appreciate Japanese Food, the taste of sashimi may need some getting used to.
Nigiri-Zushi
It is a slice of raw fish over a little amount of pressed rice seasoned with vinegar. It may or may not be tied by a nori stripe.
Temaki
A tiny piece of raw fish wrapped in seasoned rice and enrolled in a nori cone. In Japan it is sold in cigar shape, but there are many places where it is a cone sushi.
Oshizushi
Oshizushi is very much like a Nigiri-Zushi, but the whole piece of fish and rice is pressed inside that wooden box.
The final result is this:
It doesn't need algae stripes to be firm.
Gunkanmaki
A strong tasted maki. It is a small amount of salmon eggs enrolled in nori. Its taste also demands some getting used to.
Uramaki
It is a kind of inverted Sushi. The rice goes out and the fish and vegetables inside. The most popular Uramaki was invented in USA, with the name of California. It takes crab, cucumber, mayonnaise and avocado. I'm not a fan; it tastes like rotten fruit salad.
Hosomaki
It's a small sushi roll. Usually, it has only one ingredient inside the rice and the nori (not the case of that one up here). The most popular ingredients are cucumber, tuna and pickles.
Futomaki
It's a huge hosomaki with much more ingredients inside, as vegetables, fish slices and eggs. The rice portion is larger.
Chirashi
It's a kind of meal with raw fish, sea-food and fish eggs; all of it over a layer of vinegar seasoned rice.
That is it. I hope I was of any help.
