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【English Name】Tuna Salad

Tuna salad enjoys unshakable popularity as a gunkan (battleship) topping at conveyor-belt sushi and takeout shops. As its name, simply combining the English "tuna" and "salad," indicates, it is a salad-style dish of canned tuna or bonito mixed with mayonnaise.

Preparation is very simple: the base is "tuna-mayo," made by flaking water-packed or oil-packed canned tuna and mixing it with mayonnaise. Adding chopped onion, celery, pickles, or boiled egg gives the flavor more depth. Styles such as making it into a sandwich between bread, arranging it with lettuce, avocado, and tomato, or serving it on crackers have also become widespread.

In sushi, the standard is to heap it generously into a gunkan shape wrapped all around with nori, and its combination with corn or imitation crab (kanikama) enjoys cross-generational support.

Overseas, it has evolved in its own ways from place to place. In the United States, a version that uses no mayonnaise but instead mashes avocado with added lemon juice for a low-calorie finish became widespread. On Belgian tables, "peach tuna," with tuna salad heaped inside a peach fruit, has taken root as a local dish called "peches au thon" in French.