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Fish and seafood from China

Zha (鲊), historical Chinese rice-fish鲊

Zha is the early Chinese ferment of salted fish packed with cooked rice and eaten once it has turned sour. This entry is a reconstruction from three classical texts, not a living recipe. The Han dictionaries define the word, and the 6th-century Qimin Yaoshu gives the full method.

Fully documentedFish and seafood

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe Han dictionaries give no amounts. The Qimin Yaoshu recipe, with its amounts, has its own entry (qmys-yu-zha-full).
Fishnot given in the han textsThe Qimin Yaoshu uses fresh carp, cut into skin-on pieces[qmys-ws]
Saltnot given in the han texts[shiming-ws][qmys-ws]
Cooked ricenot given in the han textsThe Qimin Yaoshu wants firm-cooked non-glutinous rice[shiming-ws][qmys-ws]
Start
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Close-up: salt moving into a fish

What changes: Salt goes onto the fish and draws water out of it

Step 1 of 4
Salt the fish
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Reconstruction. The Shiming says zha is brewed with salt and rice; the Qimin Yaoshu salts the pieces and presses the water out under a stone. Output: salted fish.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Zha is the early Chinese ferment of salted fish packed with cooked rice and eaten once it has turned sour. This entry is a reconstruction from three classical texts, not a living recipe. The Han dictionaries define the word, and the 6th-century Qimin Yaoshu gives the full method.

What makes this one different

Zha is the early Chinese name for fish fermented with rice, the method that survives as Japanese narezushi. Unlike fish jiang, it uses cooked rice, not qu, to sour the fish.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Jin (䰼)The Shuowen says the south calls stored fish jin and the north calls it zha; one reading makes zha the big-fish form and jin the small-fish form.

Safety

The Qimin Yaoshu says zha is made in spring and autumn. In cold weather it is hard to ripen; in hot weather it needs so much salt that it loses its taste and breeds maggots. Raw fish sealed with cooked rice is the kind of ferment behind much of Japan's food botulism (izushi caused 14 of the 29 incidents reported there from 1984 to 2026), so this reconstruction is history, not a recipe to follow.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The Shuowen jiezi (about 100 CE) defines 鮺 as stored fish. The Shiming (about 200 CE) defines 鮓 as fish brewed with salt and rice like a pickle and eaten when ripe. The Qimin Yaoshu (6th century) gives the first full recipes. Wikipedia's outline places the origin of rice-fermented fish in Southeast Asia.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
Process times
The sources we found give no figure for how long any of its steps take.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [maff-boto] MAFF Japan, hazard profile, Clostridium botulinum (food poisoning cases and control measures)gov
  2. [shuowen-ws] Xu Shen, Shuowen jiezi (about 100 CE), juan 11, entries 鮺 and 䰼; Chinese text on Wikisource, read 2026-10archive
  3. [shiming-ws] Liu Xi, Shiming (about 200 CE), juan 4, Shi yinshi (釋飲食), entry 鮓; Chinese text on Wikisource, read 2026-10archive
  4. [qmys-ws] Jia Sixie, Qimin Yaoshu (6th century), vol. 8, ch. 74 作魚鮓; Chinese text on Wikisource, read 2026-10archive
  5. [wiki-sushi] Wikipedia, Sushi (history of narezushi; outline only)wiki