PL here ...
A science fiction editor I know pretty well - you won't be able to guess who she is, she hasn't edited any of my books - once said that if she wanted to eat raw fish and seaweed, she could go stretch out on some sea shore, face to the ocean, and open her mouth...
Well, aside from not working very well in winter - unless you're a member of the Polar Bear Club, which is another story - what you can get to eat in a Japanese sushi restaurant, whether raw fish or seaweed, is a lot more tasty. In fact, sushi is my favorite food.
Or tied for first place with Italian food - vongole (clams) or calamari (squid) to be exact...
But sushi is a cold, sweet, salty protein rush. Not everyone likes it - but it's a lot more than you can get, mouth open, at the shore. A significant joy of sushi is the vinegared rice, which not only tastes great but keeps the fish fresh. And of course the mix of fish could never swim up on any single shore. Sushi comes in pieces and various kinds of rolls. Each piece is a mini-food pyramid, with protein (fish), carbs (rice), and vegetable (seaweed). If you order piece by piece, you can easily control how much you eat, even better than with Chinese dim sum and Spanish tapas. Your high school fitness teacher should have loved it.
My wife introduced me to sushi back in the 1970s. Her boss loved it (he lived to a ripe old age). Now I actually eat more more sushi than she does.
Here are a few of my favorites, with explanations:
White tuna: I get it whenever I can. It's much more vibrant than any regular tuna, including Yellow Tail, which is quite good.
Ebi: This is sweet, raw shrimp ... and it's sweeter than sugar ...
Soft-shell crab: Served in any way is delicious. I like mine in a "roll" - crab on the inside, seaweed wrapping, rice in the middle ... the soft-shell crab is cooked ...
Well, that's more than enough dinner for me. I included the soft-shell crab not only because it's delicious but because it's cooked. Most sushi shrimp, unlike the raw Ebi, is cooked, too. These are good entry morsels into the world of sushi, if you're squeamish about eating fish raw. But, look, lox is raw, and you've probably eaten some of that at one time or another. Tuna sushi is just lox's next-door neighbor.
Miso soup, made from soy, is a good way to start - the darker the better. Edamame - soy beans in their pods, boiled or steamed - is a scrumptious and very healthy appetizer. Green tea is great to sip with sushi. Plum wine is fine, and sake is smooth and transcendental.
If you have room for dessert, I'd go with red-bean ice cream.
A science fiction editor I know pretty well - you won't be able to guess who she is, she hasn't edited any of my books - once said that if she wanted to eat raw fish and seaweed, she could go stretch out on some sea shore, face to the ocean, and open her mouth...
Well, aside from not working very well in winter - unless you're a member of the Polar Bear Club, which is another story - what you can get to eat in a Japanese sushi restaurant, whether raw fish or seaweed, is a lot more tasty. In fact, sushi is my favorite food.
Or tied for first place with Italian food - vongole (clams) or calamari (squid) to be exact...
But sushi is a cold, sweet, salty protein rush. Not everyone likes it - but it's a lot more than you can get, mouth open, at the shore. A significant joy of sushi is the vinegared rice, which not only tastes great but keeps the fish fresh. And of course the mix of fish could never swim up on any single shore. Sushi comes in pieces and various kinds of rolls. Each piece is a mini-food pyramid, with protein (fish), carbs (rice), and vegetable (seaweed). If you order piece by piece, you can easily control how much you eat, even better than with Chinese dim sum and Spanish tapas. Your high school fitness teacher should have loved it.My wife introduced me to sushi back in the 1970s. Her boss loved it (he lived to a ripe old age). Now I actually eat more more sushi than she does.
Here are a few of my favorites, with explanations:
White tuna: I get it whenever I can. It's much more vibrant than any regular tuna, including Yellow Tail, which is quite good.
Ebi: This is sweet, raw shrimp ... and it's sweeter than sugar ...
Soft-shell crab: Served in any way is delicious. I like mine in a "roll" - crab on the inside, seaweed wrapping, rice in the middle ... the soft-shell crab is cooked ...
Well, that's more than enough dinner for me. I included the soft-shell crab not only because it's delicious but because it's cooked. Most sushi shrimp, unlike the raw Ebi, is cooked, too. These are good entry morsels into the world of sushi, if you're squeamish about eating fish raw. But, look, lox is raw, and you've probably eaten some of that at one time or another. Tuna sushi is just lox's next-door neighbor.
Miso soup, made from soy, is a good way to start - the darker the better. Edamame - soy beans in their pods, boiled or steamed - is a scrumptious and very healthy appetizer. Green tea is great to sip with sushi. Plum wine is fine, and sake is smooth and transcendental.
If you have room for dessert, I'd go with red-bean ice cream.
