Media Advisory: Students vie for sushi-making record

ATTENTION: Weekend assignment desks

WHAT

NOTE: Excellent visuals for TV crews and newspaper photographers

Construction of a 330-foot-long California sushi roll by University of California, Berkeley, students who hope to best the current world record set in Maui, Hawaii, in 2001. That sushi roll measured 300 feet.

On the organizers’ grocery list are at least 536 sheets of nori (edible seaweed), 102 pounds of dry rice, 167 pounds of a fish-based product called surimi, 67 pounds of cucumbers and 67 pounds of avocados.

WHEN

Noon-1:30 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 8

WHERE

Upper Sproul Plaza, starting at the plaza fountain just north of the intersection of Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue, and winding its way north, under landmark Sather Gate.

WHO

More than 350 UC Berkeley students on 58 teams with names like Smashin’ Sushi, AvoCALdoes, Cal Taiko Roll Masterz and Nobunga are signed up for the competition. They represent sororities, fraternities, service organizations, residence halls and other groups.

DETAILS

The event is being sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies, along with Cal Dining and numerous food vendors have donated ingredients. It will follow a morning symposium on the history and contemporary forms of Japanese food culture. Cal Dining staff members have provided team leaders with a crash course on sushi making.

Members of the Cal Raijin Taiko drummers will provide a dramatic acoustic backdrop for the competition. The Japanese consul general of San Francisco will be on hand to verify contest results.

After the giant California roll is officially measured, it will be eaten by students on the spot. Approximately 18 feet of will be vegetarian.

Chef Ichiro Manashita of the Tokyo Kaikan restaurant in Los Angeles is generally considered to be the inventor of the California roll, a hybridization of Japanese sushi that began popping up on menus in the early 1970s. In Japan, it is called kashu-maki, or literally, “California roll.”