Sashimi may now be considered a classic Japanese dish, but China has its own ancient tradition of consuming raw fish. It’s a long history, stretching back as far as the Zhou dynasty (1046 – 256 BCE), with the delicacy becoming increasingly fashionable over the centuries. Although its popularity waned when diners and doctors began to link a number of diseases to its consumption, some places, particularly in the south, have maintained China’s raw fish-eating traditions.

The Book of Rites (《礼记》), a collection of texts mainly published in the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) on the society and politics of the Zhou era, describe how sliced raw fish, mutton, and beef, known collectively as “脍 (kuaì),” had been one of the most popular dishes in ancient China even before the Qin dynasty (221 – 206 BCE). Raw meat and fish were often served at banquets for the nobility together with roasted meat, known as 炙 (zhì). Kuai’s value can be seen in a literary chengyu of the time still widely used today: 脍炙人口 (kuàizhì rénkǒu), meaning to win universal praise and popularity, as both kuai and zhi were considered delicious.

The raw fish was usually prepared in a similar way to today: The Book of Rites recorded that “kuai is eaten with leeks in spring, and with mustard sauce”—just like how wasabi is the preferred modern condiment for sashimi.

Carp was among the most popular fish to have raw. According to the Classic of Poetry (《诗经》), the oldest known collection of Chinese poetry compiled between the 7th and 11th century BCE, a minister during the Zhou dynasty named Yin Jifu (尹吉甫) hosted a banquet for his friends, serving his guests main courses of steamed soft-shelled turtle and sliced raw carp.

During the Qin and Han dynasties, raw fish became increasingly popular, particularly in the south of the country and the Jiangnan region where there was an abundance of saltwater and freshwater fish. People even invented a new character, 鲙 (still pronounced kuai), to specifically refer to sliced raw fish, adding the fish radical 鱼 to the original 脍.