I live in Vancouver, and it's bursting-at-the-seams full of yuppies. It's claimed that we have more sushi restaurants than McDonalds, and it's easy to believe. Most of the sushi bars use wasabi paste produced from powdered wasabi, made in gigantic batches by the corporate machine. I see an internal moral conflict evolving within these rich yuppies. I want to start growing wasabi plants, and then selling it to a few enterprising sushi bars. They can then advertise that they offer organic, locally-grown, free-trade wasabi. I would load the soil full of sulphur so it's stronger than normal wasabi, and then people could brag to their friends about how their favourite little sushi bar serves real wasabi, and this "fake" wasabi is nothing like the real thing, that they should open their eyes, et cetera.
Growing wasabi in the great white north is hard. Selling produce is hard. Finding sushi bars crazy enough to try out my scheme is hard. Last time I checked, hard*hard*hard approximates impossible. Still, I think it's a pretty cool idea.
old man - 2007-03-22 13:23:32
I think you'll find adding wood ash to the soil will give your wasabi more kick than by adding sulphur. Works for onions, radishes, peppers. IDEA: experiment, and try to come up with the hottest wasabi. Also, come up with a gimic for the restaurants to use for 'shaving' the wasabi at the table, or at least fresh. Check out how it is done in Japan.