Flavor and smell of fermented sushi

Abstract

There are many kinds of narezushi, fermented fish with lot of rice around lake Biwa. Funazushi, the symbol of Lake Biwa's narezushi, is made from crucian carp and rice. Narezushi has strong smell and specific sour taste after fermentation. Many kinds of organic acid, alcohol, ester, aldehyde and ketone were produced by fermentation. The concentration of lactic acid showed the highest, about 2%.
We found 22 kinds of volatile compounds in funazushi, acetic acid, 1-butylic acid, ethanol, 2-phenylethanol, and ethyl lactate. Fermented funazushi rice showed antibiotic activities against Bacillus mesententericus and E coli.