How to Make Sushi [Dave Barry]

Maimi Herald ^ | Nov. 29, 1998 | DAVE BARRY

[river rat]

Unless I am mistaken --- you have Fugu on the brown plate - at high center of your picture...

Had it served to me once -- in Nagoya.
We were told it was the same restaurant where a famous Japanese actor committed suicide in front of his friends by intentionally eating the most deadly portion of the fish..which he ordered to be brought from the kitchen.

The "safe" pieces of Fugu had absolutely no taste - in my opinion...
I believe it to be a "status" or "impression" dish, more than anything else...

In Japan, the very best Sushi is to be found in the small, popular neighborhood Sushi Restaurants..... They rely on return business from the neighborhood residents -- and they are more comfortable, friendly and appreciative of your business.

One of the MOST delicious and surprising meals I discovered- was Unagi Donbori. Barbecued ell with a delicious unique sauce, served over a bowel of rice. Here again, the best to be found was in a small neighborhood restaurant in a small town near Nagoya.

Even after nearly 50 business trips to Japan - I never tired of the wonderful and vast selection of food. It is one country in the world - that I felt perfectly safe in eating whatever was placed in front of me - or found being sold on the street...

Semper Fi

[Noumenon]

Many years ago, I went o na first date with a woman who had never bee nt oa sushi bar. She was willing to try it, though - give her that.

So we sit down at the bar, and the chef puts in front of us the customary wodden platter with a blob of gari (pickled ginger) and a healthy serving of wasabi. Before I could stop her, my date picks up the little mound of wasabi and pops it into her mouth, thinking that it was some kind of appetizer.

Serious wrong move.

Needless to say, that was our first and last date together.

[Noumenon]

There is no such thing as "too much wasabi". My wife and I dump it on so that you can feel your scalp shrink as it hits.

Amen, bro, and roger that.

[G.Mason]

"You sound like my husband.............."

You and my wife must have much in common, not the least of which is patience and great love. ;)

My regards to you both.

[G.Mason]

"If one more person tells me that "it tastes so good" I am going to scream ... "

I'm with you on that, and I love fish! The cooked kind. ;)

[Ditter]

Eeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkaaaaa! See, there you went and done it! Now my dogs are scared of me! ;9)

[G.Mason]

"Yup, that's how I feel about raw clams and oysters, too.....bait."

For sure. Oysters won't stay on the hook, but they do make a good chum. The kind for fishing I meant. ;)

[torchthemummy]

Dave Barry is hilarious. I am just finishing his book, "Dave Barry Slept Here - A Sort Of History Of The United States". As one review says (LA Times - well a broken clock is right twice a day): "The better you know the original, the funnier it gets."

Two of the running gags are replacing every date with "October 8", his son's birthday, and peppering lengthier "male achievments" passages with a variation on the single line, "...and women and minorities were making many important contributions" then moving on to another male achievement.

His best in my opinion. Hilarious.

[AmishDude]

Dave Barry Slept Here is without a doubt his funniest book. Possibly the funniest book I've ever read. His second-best book IMHO is the travel guide.

[torchthemummy]

Agreed.

[TheBattman]

Sushi is a rice roll that often (but not always) contains some form of fish or shellfish - can be cooked or raw.

Sashimi is pretty much the same fish or shellfish, but without the rice.

I happen to enjoy many varieties of Sashimi and Sushi.

[AmishDude]

Welcome to the club.

[ExSoldier]

Yesterday's BAIT is today's PLATE!

[ExSoldier]

Ummmm I don't think you guys are correct. You can have Sushi rolls that are essentially fish or veggies wrapped in rice and secured with seaweed, but more classic sushi is raw fish cut into strips and laid upon rectangular strips of white rice. These are grasped by the chopsticks and dunked into the soy sauce before consumption. If you are clever and discerning, you will take small chunks of the nuclear green mustard and mix it with the soy sauce before dunking said sushi and it will either delight or FRY your taste buds, in either case the sensations will be unique. I can usually put away between 20-30 such pieces at my local all-you-can-eat Japanese establishment at a nominal cost of about $16.00, including Miso Soup and a coke or Japanese beer. Not bad.

Sashimi OTOH is simply the raw fish and soy sauce with Wasabi mustard sans any rice. I think the rice makes the dish by soaking up the soy/wasabi combo.

[ExSoldier]

And so when Bok An, the proprietor of Sakura, my local sushi restaurant in Coral Gables, Fla., invited me to be a guest sushi chef, I enthusiastically answered: ''No!'' I was afraid that I'd have to touch an eel. I am 51 years old, and I did not get this far by touching eels. But Bok assured me that we would stick to basic fish species such as tuna, salmon and cucumber.

I live in Coral Gables and IMHO, TAISHO is a far superior sushi restaurant to Sakura! Miako is very good as well, but more expensive for less food.

[Larry Lucido]

You just don't appreciate other cultures.

Good, neither do I.

[epow]

I never understood why someone would take good bait and eat it raw, when all they would have to do is put some on a hook and catch a perfectly good food fish, broil it, bake it, or fry it and have a feast

I don't understand that either. You could put one of those little sushi rolls on a 3/0 hook, drop it down over a grouper hole in the Gulf of Mexico and snag a 10 pound black grouper. But the Japanese would rather eat that one little hunk of raw bait than the 10 lb grouper, dredged in cornmeal and deep fried crispy brown like God intended fish to be eaten.

I guess that's what makes those inscrutable orientals so inscrutable.

[fight_truth_decay]

Thats what I said..sushi is raw fish and wrapped in some kind of vegetation or rice and shashimi is just the raw fish..which I dip in soy sauce and wasabi. Fresh water eel and yellow fin tuna my first choice. Good anyway!! Had it in Maui everyday.

[MarkL]

Before I give you the details, I should explain, for the benefit of those of you who live in remote wilderness regions such as Iowa, what sushi is. Basically, it is a type of cuisine developed by the Japanese as part of an ancient tradition of seeing what is the scariest thing they can get you to eat raw.

Here in Kansas City, we're modern and urban enough to know what sushi is... That's the japanese word for "BAIT."

Mark

[MarkL]

I realize that this is strictly a "cultural thing," but I happen to believe that the American culture is superior... Especially when it comes to food. I mean, for goodness sake, a lot of what they normally eat seems to come up on "Fear Factor!"

I realize that they eat all sorts of things that we might call "exotic," all over the world, but give me a big hunk of charred, dead cow flesh, over cold, quivering amphibians any day!

Seriously, sometimes when I watch "Iron Chef," I get the feeling that the food they eat was actually a carry-over from WWII, in order to keep US troops from invading ("Sure, you are welcome here, American GI. Why don't you try this delicious pickeled eel to start off your dinner!"). To paraphrase a line from the movie, "So I married an Axe Murderer," "Most of what they serve sounds like it comes from losing a bet!"

Mark