Dear John,

Hey, it's a Dear John letter. John Doe? OK, I'll get past that.

The term "traditional sushi" is generally used loosely. Most of the
time I use it to differentiate sushi made with unusual ingredients or
methods from those that use a combination of properly prepared sushi
rice, a little wasabi perhaps and some fish or vegetable matter.
Unusual ingredients would include sauces such as those used by Nobu in
his New Style cuisine. Unusual methods (at least to me) would include
deep frying sushi. Am I being historically definitive here? No.
However, as in pornography, we know it when we see it, or in this case
when we eat it.

There was a great Iron Chef Japan show from very early in the series
where (I believe, but I could be wrong) Tadamichi Ohta was paired
against Morimoto - the traditionalist against the neo-Japanese cuisine
supporter. It emphasized some of the differences in style between the
two.