![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Untraditionalism and Food: Sushi
Jun. 20th, 2009 12:52 amI like food that is well constructed and presented. Obviously I like tasty food as well, but there is something to be said for food which looks good. This is not the same as restaurants requiring chefs to have certification in structural engineering. Honestly, this is my main complaint with some of the truly French restaurants, because they construct food for height and serve it in near darkness. If the food collapses when you touch it with a fork, but you cannot see to catch it before the floor monster gets it, the portion size is even smaller.
If you've been around here for a while, you know that I really dislike fish. More and more people who are involved in sustainable food are coming around to my point of view. Fishing for the consumption of millions is disastrous to the ecology of the oceans and fish farms are the oceanic equivalent of burning the rainforests to plant coca. In fact, several big Aquariums have .pdfs for sushi eaters to help them minimize their negative impact.
I will admit that I really enjoy sushi. This sounds like a contradiction, but it is not. My favorite maki are the avocado&cucumber&carrot rolls, but pretty much any combination of those will float my boat. I have heard rumors of sweet-potato&carrot maki and just the thought of that makes my tonsils wet.
What irritates me about sushi is how staid they are in their options. Obviously it doesn't look staid to people who can differentiate types of fish--- to me they all taste like what follows after, Pepto Bismol--- I'm sure that no one else thinks bbq eel rolls are a standard. But to me, it's all fish. Sometimes I will see a speciality roll and think it sounds interesting until I get to the various fishes.
I think I would like sushi if it was made with tonkatsu. I have seen California rolls where the crab is a crab salad, maybe they could do it with ham or chicken salad? Obviously those meats would require cooking. But some sushi has cooked seafood, so it is not completely alien to the chefs.
But I would really love to be able to go into a Japanese restaurant and get custom food. Sweet potato, carrot and fried pork cutlet rolls-- perhaps with that bbq sauce currently reserved for fancy eel rolls! All potato tempura--- last time my veg tempura was all asparagus and broccoli; think of the money they could have saved if they just asked me! Even the standard veg sushi most places offer could be made more inexpensively and to better suit my preferences if they just asked if I like mushrooms. But I have no idea how one goes about requesting specialty items from someone who doesn't really speak the same language I do.
Japanese chefs often sound like The Cat from Red Dwarf to me, "Fish!" I'm absolutely sure that if I understood that all fish doesn't taste the same, I might think they were more than monosyllabic unidimensional assemblers of overly fancy catfood.
If you've been around here for a while, you know that I really dislike fish. More and more people who are involved in sustainable food are coming around to my point of view. Fishing for the consumption of millions is disastrous to the ecology of the oceans and fish farms are the oceanic equivalent of burning the rainforests to plant coca. In fact, several big Aquariums have .pdfs for sushi eaters to help them minimize their negative impact.
I will admit that I really enjoy sushi. This sounds like a contradiction, but it is not. My favorite maki are the avocado&cucumber&carrot rolls, but pretty much any combination of those will float my boat. I have heard rumors of sweet-potato&carrot maki and just the thought of that makes my tonsils wet.
What irritates me about sushi is how staid they are in their options. Obviously it doesn't look staid to people who can differentiate types of fish--- to me they all taste like what follows after, Pepto Bismol--- I'm sure that no one else thinks bbq eel rolls are a standard. But to me, it's all fish. Sometimes I will see a speciality roll and think it sounds interesting until I get to the various fishes.
I think I would like sushi if it was made with tonkatsu. I have seen California rolls where the crab is a crab salad, maybe they could do it with ham or chicken salad? Obviously those meats would require cooking. But some sushi has cooked seafood, so it is not completely alien to the chefs.
But I would really love to be able to go into a Japanese restaurant and get custom food. Sweet potato, carrot and fried pork cutlet rolls-- perhaps with that bbq sauce currently reserved for fancy eel rolls! All potato tempura--- last time my veg tempura was all asparagus and broccoli; think of the money they could have saved if they just asked me! Even the standard veg sushi most places offer could be made more inexpensively and to better suit my preferences if they just asked if I like mushrooms. But I have no idea how one goes about requesting specialty items from someone who doesn't really speak the same language I do.
Japanese chefs often sound like The Cat from Red Dwarf to me, "Fish!" I'm absolutely sure that if I understood that all fish doesn't taste the same, I might think they were more than monosyllabic unidimensional assemblers of overly fancy catfood.
