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Comment by tcdent | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like they either imported or imitated a lot of other Japanese stuff based on the content of that first news clipping.

Sure, they're not going to find it locally available, but I don't see why it would be impossible for someone wealthy to get what they wanted.

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Even a wealthy person in 1905 couldn't get fresh fish from the ocean. The Wright brothers didn't even fly until 1903. And the train from either coast would be a couple of weeks.

As someone else mentioned, it was probably tamago, or maybe beef. Or maybe even local fish but pickled, which would have gone with the vinegar rice.

Or maybe they used local fish raw and just risked getting worms.

Or maybe they froze it, like most sushi now? That would take care of the risk of worms. They had freezers available in 1905 - no idea how widespread.

That makes sense. Assuming they had freezer cars on the trains. Or I guess you could try freezing the freshwater fish, or holding it at a temp close to freezing for awhile.

Shipping food by refrigerated rail was quite common in 1905.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator_car

In 1905 trains were crossing the continent in 4-5 days. North Dakota was likely 2 days or so by rail from the Pacific Ocean.

Sliced thinly enough, you can pick out the parasite cysts on a light table. No freezing necessary.

A couple weeks? I don't know much about the state of the railroads in 1905, but the Pony Express could get a letter halfway across the continent, on horseback, in 10 days. Fifty-five years beforehand.

It seems entirely reasonable to me that a person in North Dakota could get fish delivered from the coasts, on ice, in a couple of days. Now, did they? I honestly have no idea.

Heck, half of the point of the article seemed to be that we seriously underestimate the people (Americans, in this case), of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

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