Many Japanese restaurants offer a house sashimi plate that includes an array of different fish, although it is often possible for dinerer to design their own plate. In this instance, it is important for the customer to know the Japanese names of the fish. Salmon is referred to as sake, tuna is maguro, and fatty tuna is toro. Saba refers to mackerel, while yellowtail fish is hamachi. Of course, this dish is not exclusively fish. Squid, or ika, and tako, which means octopus, can also be included. While sashimi is almost always a raw dish, shrimp is often served as a cooked addition. Cooked shrimp is known as ebi.

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Snow Man Sashimi

Beef is the culinary name for meat from bovines, especially domestic cattle. Beef can be harvested from cows, bulls, heifers or steers.

Beef muscle meat can be cut into steak, roasts or short ribs. Some cuts are processed (corned beef or beef jerky), and trimmings, usually mixed with meat from older, leaner cattle, are ground, minced or used in sausages. The blood is used in some varieties of blood sausage. Other parts that are eaten include the oxtail, tongue, tripe from the reticulum or rumen, glands (particularly the pancreas and thymus, referred to as sweetbread), the heart, the brain (although forbidden where there is a danger of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE), the liver, the kidneys, and the tender testicles of the bull (known in the US as calf fries, prairie oysters, or Rocky Mountain oysters). Some intestines are cooked and eaten as-is, but are more often cleaned and used as natural sausage casings. The bones are used for making beef stock.

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