Wasabi: ground Japanese horseradish root; spicy enough to tickle your nose with a peacock feather. It's usually ground into a green paste. Rarely sold fresh in the United States, it's available as an instant powder or, increasingly, prepared paste sold in tubes.

Nori: roasted seaweed sheets. With an herbal, vegetal scent, these black or black-green sheets are at once crispy and pliable. Nori is used to wrap short-grained, vinegared rice for sushi. Cone-shaped wraps are called hand rolls, while cylinders are “maki.” Extra-thin julienne of nori are also available for those who prefer to skip the rolling, and simply garnish their rice with flavorful, nutritious weeds of the briny deep.

Rice Vinegar: less acidic than American wine vinegar. It has a clean taste and is as clear as water. In combination with sugar, it's used to flavor the rice for sushi. If you can't find it, use another mild vinegar, such as cider vinegar.

Pickled Ginger: thin slivers of fresh ginger root in a sweet cure; often tinted pink. It's traditional to chew a piece of pickled ginger in between bites of sushi to refresh the palate.

Sake: Japanese rice wine. It is excellent in marinades, and useful for brightening up sleepy flavors.

Shoyu: milder Japanese soy sauce. It is often used with sushi.

Mirin: sweet rice wine. It is used for flavoring marinades and sometimes for sushi rice.

Sushi Rice: short-grain Japanese-style rice. With high starch content, this rice sticks to itself when cooked, allowing it to be shaped into handrolls, maki, and sushi portions.