Tsuma (garnish) (つま)
Tsuma is a garnish used for sashimi dish.
It is also written as 'ツマ.'
Summary
It has deodorizing effects on fish-smell, and it also works to stimulate appetite by making the dish appear beautiful to the eye. Furthermore, those with anti-microbial effects such as wasabi, serve to prevent sashimi from spoiling. Although they are not at all used in the present-day, peels of natsumikan (summer tangerine) and egg threads were used for tsuma.
In the present-day, there are no distinction between 'ken' such as fine strips of raw daikon radish, 'tsuma' such as seaweeds, and 'karami' such wasabi, and all of them are often referred to as 'tsuma.'
Representatives of what are referred to as tsuma
Wasabi
Ginger
Garlic
Japanese white radish
Carrot
Shiso, Japanese basil
Perilla seeds
Spike
Polygonum
Beach silvertop
Edible chrysanthemum
Parsley
Lemon
Wakame seaweed
Chinese moss
Meristotheca papulosa
Derivative word
There are occasions when tsuma is used in such a way as 'not even tsuma for sashimi' (it is below garnish) to describe 'worthless', 'small-scale', 'casual treatment' and so on.