Wasabi Dishes

No meal at which Japanese sashimi is served would be complete without wasabi, the hot green radish paste mixed with soy sauce and enjoyed as a sashimi dip. A beautiful and functional wasabi-and-sauce dish (Figure 20) can easily be made from giant clam shells. More than 120 million people live in Japan, and virtually all of them use wasabi on a regular basis. The potential market for novel wasabi dishes is by no means insignificant.

The basic sauce dish is made like a soap dish, using a hot glue gun to fasten a slightly larger shell, which serves as the sauce holder, onto a slightly smaller, inverted shell, which serves as the base. The wasabi holder is a third, smaller shell that is glued to the hinge area of the sauce holder.

H. hippopus shells make perhaps the most attractive wasabi dishes. These dishes were marketed at MMDC as the “fancy” wasabi dish and proved especially popular with Japanese tourists. T. derasa shells also make nice wasabi dishes. This type was marketed at MMDC as the “standard” wasabi dish and was not as popular as those made with H. hippopus.

MMDC sold the standard T. derasa wasabi dishes for $5 each and the fancy H. hippopus dishes for $10 each, and the shop could never seem to keep enough of them stocked. This item was a real moneymaker when presented to appreciative consumers, especially elderly Japanese tourists. Local Japanese sushi chefs in Palau frequently came to the MMDC Gift Shop specifically to buy wasabi dishes for use in their restaurants. They were used by literally thousands of customers.

While on the subject of giant clam shells for holding wasabi and soy sauce, it is worth noting that some authentic Okinawan sushi bars use small giant clam shells for holding hashi, known as chop sticks in English. The hashi oki is simply a single small clam shell, about 5 centimeters long, inverted on the table top near the customer's place setting. One end of the pair of hashi is laid over the shell, the other end rests on the table. Japanese cooking is famous for its attention to detail and its subtle presentation touches, all of which enhance the dining experience. Using a giant clam shell for hashi oki is but one example of this philosophy.