Sushi. Food or Bait?

I don't eat it anymore. Many years ago I was out with a group of business co-workers and we all had sushi. We were in California and it was fresh. However, a couple of days later I developed cracks on the corners of my mouth that would occasionally bleed. It took forever to go away and my doctor said it was most likely a fungus from the sushi. I know... ewwww.
 
Internationally renowned sushi chef preparing and enjoying his culinary masterpiece...

Image result for golem eating fish gif


Image result for golem eating fish gif
 

I was in Campbell River British Columbia when I met a helpful restaurant owner who gave me a ride to find propane for my boat's stove. He was so nice and his establishment was close to the marina, so I had dinner there as a thank you. He saw me come in and waited on me personally. He gave me a menu, and I asked him what was good, and he recommended, "The Bucket of Bait which is quite popular."

This is not a joke. It was on the menu. It was an assortment of things from the sea, shrimp, scallops, oysters, and a lot of other I don't know what all, served in a miniature bucket as a thick tasty stew. And it was good. I went back and tried other things on the menu over the week, and it was all top notch.
 
I love sushi. This has been true since I moved to California some 40 years ago. I like best the cooked forms--shrimp, REAL crabmeat, and recently I had a baked scallop roll that was out of this world. But always in a Japanese restaurant, never from the supermarket.
 
I have enjoyed eating sushi most of my life. My wife also loves it. We both grew up in Colorado. I lived in a small mountain town and sushi was not available. But when I traveled to Denver or Colorado Springs, I learned to enjoy sushi. I am careful where I eat it, but I have never had a bad experience with it.
 
Sushi is pressed rice, sometimes salted or lightly pickled. That's ALL it is.

Raw fish is sashimi. Sushi can have fillings or toppings - fish, meat, vegetables, even fruit - or even nothing at all, just rice!

Otherwise it's the equivalent of saying, "I HATE hot dog buns!" when what you really dislike is the hot dog itself.
 
I love sushi. The grocery stores here in the San Francisco bay area are good sources for cheap sushi. It's good enough for a quick fix but nothing spectacular.

For those who don't like fish sushi there is a restaurant chain, Kura, which has several beef based sushi items. In addition they have several cooked fish sushi options that feature seared salmon or scallops, grilled mackerel, deep fired soft shell crab and tempura shrimp. There may be some others I've forgotten. So you don't have to eat fish or raw fish to enjoy sushi even though I do.

The best sushi I've ever had was at Nobu in Las Vegas after my wife did very well gambling. We had also been to the flagship Nobu in London when my wife was working there, but it wasn't quite as good as the Las Vegas meal.

The most unusual place I've had sushi was a Japanese restaurant in Cluj, Romania which is many miles from the ocean or sea. However it was very good.
 
Night crawlers for fishing, Sushi for dinner on the way home from fishing. People are afraid of Sushi because it isn't cooked. Ocean fish is safe to eat raw IF it has been frozen to below 0 F. Sushi restaurants would go out of business quickly if their customers were getting sick...
 
Well, then there's "fugu", a pufferfish that contains a highly-poisonous toxin called tetrodotoxin. It doesn't take much of it to send you to a painful death.

Specially-trained chefs prepare this fish, cutting out the poison sacs. They must be licensed to prepare the fish. It's very, very expensive. Apparently, the "in" thing to do is to experience just a tiny bit of the poison, just enough to make your lips and mouth "tingle" but not to kill you. I guess that proves you are a true gourmet who values the uniqueness of your food and the chance to brag about it, without worrying much about the danger. The problem is......is the chef having a good night or a bad night? Did he leave just a smidgen more of the toxin in than is safe?

I can see the waiter coming up to your table to serve you at the Fugu Diner. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight we have a few specials. There is the almost-perfectly-safe Fugu with a side order of fava beans and squid-ink pasta. We also have the not-that-safe Fugu special that comes with a side of Lidocaine for your lips and a complimentary EpiPen. Our most popular special, however, is the "Did-the-chef-get-ALL-of-the-poison-out?" Fugu and that includes a ride in an ambulance and a visit with an Emergency Room physician if needed."

No, if I want to walk on the wild side, I'll just get some filling station sushi like I saw sitting out on the counter last summer while on vacation.
 
The only time I had sushi was when I knew a Japanese girl in London back in the early 80s. She invited me to her flat to a party she was hosting there for other Japanese girls. I tried the various bits of sushi, but found that I didn't enjoy it, probably because with my western palate I didn't like eating sweet and savoury stuff in the same mouthful.

I don't think I stayed at the party for more than about half an hour, just long enough to be polite before leaving. Since then I've never touched sushi again. My family all love it, but I'd rather eat food myself.
 
Yep - love Sushi, which is a type of food prep including the raw fish ‘sashimi’ which I also like a lot 🍱🍣😋
 

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