A Global History of Food

What Is a California Roll?

California Roll is a non-traditional fusion cuisine. It is a type of Japanese makizushi sushi rolls invented in Canada.
Although it is invented in Canada, Vancouver in specific, it is called “California” Roll because the majority of customers who loved this dish back in the days were from the Los-Angeles.

Rice
Seaweed
Cucumber
Avocado
Cooked Crab Meat or Imitation Crab
Mayonnaise
The outside can be sprinkled with various ingredients such as
- Toasted Sesame Seeds
- Tobiko (Flying Fish Roe)
- Masago (Capelin Roe)

The inventor, chef Hidekazu Tojo, opened his Japanese restaurant in Vancouver, Canada in 1971, but soon found out people did not like raw fish and seaweed, which are the main ingredients of Japanese popular cuisine, sushi.
In order to introduce sushi to the customers, Tojo tried to do things differently:
- Substituted raw fish with cooked crab meat
- Substituted the taste and texture from fatty raw fish with avocado
- Added cucumber because people loved to eat cucumber at that time
- Wrapped the rice on the outside of the seaweed to hide the seaweed
Most of the customers who loved this dish were from the Los-Angeles, and they brought this recipe back to California. This dish later became so popular and spread all over the world, even into Japan.

This invention was first called as “Inside-out Roll” by Tojo because of the way it is wrapped
Tojo was bashed by other Japanese chefs lived in Japan for this invention at first because of how non-traditional California Roll was made, but luckily, customers loved it and started accepting sushi because of it.
In 2016, Tojo was appointed as the Goodwill Ambassador by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries for his creation of California Roll