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We were sailing into Cabo San Lucas after a truly miserable sail from Los Angeles. Just short of Cabo we caught on a troll line a big Dorado.
Pulled him in and did him in with the vodka in the gills bit. I am not sure it really works but that is the story among sailors off Mexico.
Then we opened up a flank and took a lb or so for fresh sashimi...the fish still had not lost color and we feasted on him. Little soy, little wasabi...and at it. Screw the liver flukes. That is good food.
I too learned my sushi in the early 70s. It is possible that there was sushi available in Chicago in the 60s...but I am skeptical. There were very few sushi bars in Los Angeles in the early 70s. The only other places in the US where it might have had minuscule presence were Chicago and Dallas (and of course NY) But if there they were probably entirely Japanese in clientele. The reason is you had to have direct airline service from Tokyo. There was no place else to get sushi. I learned in Japan augmented by a good Japanese friend in Los Angeles. Note than even in the 80s sushi in the outer Hawaiian islands was local and terrible. No air service from Tokyo.
I actually grew up in Louisville KY. There lamb and veal were almost unavailable exotics. Real people ate Beef, Pork and Chicken. Only fish was catfish. Well yeah - they ate Sunfish and bass...but it does not fit my story line.
Sorry, but you're totally wrong on the ready availability and excellent quality of sashimi/sushi grade fish in the western USA as far back as the late 1950's-early 1960's ... when I was introduced to Japanese restaurants in SoCal and at school friend's family homes. It was probably readily available when the fishing fleet in the area was in it's heyday many years before, but that's before my time ... keep in mind that there was a significant Japanese presence on the West Coast long before WW2 ... as evidenced by the many people (including native-born US Citizens of Japanese descent) that were sent to internment camps at the outset of WW2.
I was introduced to sashimi by school friends when we went fishing or sailing off SoCal. Never came back from a day's racing without tossing a white bone lure off the stern of the boat and trolling on the way back into the marina ... if the waters were warm enough, we could typically entice a yellowtail or mackeral to bite; in very good fishing years, perhaps an albacore. If we were heading out just for fishing, then we'd stop by the bait receivers and get a few scoops of live bait so we could fly-line them over by the kelp paddies offshore.
IIRC, the first Japanese restaurant I went to was The Miyako in San Diego ... and I'm pretty certain it was in business for many years before I went there, but it was only one of several such restaurants in the area.
We had ready access, thanks to the San Diego based commercial fishing fleet ... as well as nearby sportfishing grounds ... to yellowtail, albacore, bonito, yellow fin tuna, mackeral, dorado, marlin ... and a host of bottom fish. Nothing could have been or was fresher or better quality than these species out of the water ranging from mere minutes to several hours. I learned to cut out slabs of the prime flanks of these fish when I was still in elementary school and to enjoy the sashimi minutes out of the water. Back then, we didn't know about the potential for parasites that we couldn't visibly see when skinning and cleaning the fish ....
In years since, on fishing boats offshore, we've always enjoyed sashimi on fish that was chilled/frozen overnight before thawing for serving. I've fished all the way from the San Diego area ... Coronado islands ... past Cedros Island and down to Cabo. If we weren't eating sashimi, we were preparing ceviche with the readily available limes ....
As well, all through those years, we had the salmon fishery from the Pacific Northwest producers and ready access to some of the finest salmon in the world. I know that there were at least several sushi bars/Japanese restaurnants in the Seattle area ... having been to a number of them when we went there for the World's Fair.
Point is, that there was a significant Japanese ethnic population on the West coast for many decades before you claim that a reliable source of sushi grade fish was possible due to flights from Japan to supply their restaurants.
Come to think of it, we had an excellent abalone source in the shoreline areas of SoCal in those years, with pinks and reds instead of the crappy blacks that are the typical abalone source in Japanese cuisine. Along with that, we had salt water eels, clams, octopus, and mussels all readily and freshly available in SoCal, with seasonal availability of crab from the Pacific Northwest fisheries. We sure in heck weren't dependent upon the fish market in Tokyo supply ... which gets a lot of it's fish from far offshore fisheries from Japan, actually now from a world-wide market supply. Ever heard of the blue-fin market for sushi grade quality tuna from the Eastern USA fisheries?
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
10,471 posts, read 15,833,234 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OpenD
Sushi means "rice."
Did you perhaps mean to say "I eat my fish broiled, baked, or pan-fried..."?
Despite the common misconception in the US, there are actually many kinds of sushi which do not have any fish in them at all. There are also several kinds of sushi which have cooked fish in them. Sushi is most definitely not only about raw fish.
Gohan means rice. Kome is another word for rice. I've never heard the word "sushi" used for rice.
I have heard the term "sushi rice". though. I've heard it used both to describle the uncooked short grain riced used for sushi, the cooked rice or the cooked rice with vinegar on it.
Sushi is a Japanese dish most often made with rice (much of the time, seasoned with rice vinegar) , sashimi (raw fish) and nori (seaweed). It can also be made with non-raw ingredients such as cooked eggs, brolied eel, or even ...Spam. I had a friend and his Korean wife made hotdog sushi rolls. I kid you not.
I too learned my sushi in the early 70s. It is possible that there was sushi available in Chicago in the 60s...but I am skeptical.
Well, I can definitely pin down my first experience eating sushi, if not the exact address, but somewhere on the near north side.
It was 1971, I was doing some photography and film work with a wild actor/chef expat from NY named George Santo Pietro, who wore skin tight leather suits and drove an Excaliber.
One day we met David Chan for lunch and to discuss a possible project together. David was the famous Playboy photographer who originated the popular "On Campus" series, and he steered us to a nearby sushi restaurant he liked. At the time the choice was as exotic and unexpected to me as, I don't know, eating RAW FISH!
Eating the sea urchin was possibly the greatest act of pure faith in my life. And the second one was in technicolor.
George later moved to L.A.and became a very successful restaurateur, then he married Vanna White, and then later they stopped.
David had a long successful career at Playboy, retiring to Vancouver several years ago, where I hope he is still alive and kicking. He was great.
And me... I can still close my eyes and remember that first mouthful of uni.
Gohan means rice. Kome is another word for rice. I've never heard the word "sushi" used for rice.
You missed the point... "sushi" refers to the rice, not to raw fish as so many people think.
Literally the word originally meant "sour taste," because the rice was fermented. Then in the 1800s vinegar replaced fermentation in "souring' the rice, as it still does today.
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
10,471 posts, read 15,833,234 times
Reputation: 6438
Quote:
Originally Posted by OpenD
You missed the point... "sushi" refers to the rice, not to raw fish as so many people think.
Literally the word originally meant "sour taste," because the rice was fermented. Then in the 1800s vinegar replaced fermentation in "souring' the rice, as it still does today.
You were correcting someone for calling it the wrong thing. I was doing the same, for you. That's the point.
Sushi doesn't mean rice. It's rice and something else. You can say it does, and I can say "Spaghetti and meatballs" is "Spaghetti" (which is what people call it, from time to time) , but I would be wrong. That's the point. You were correcting them for using wrong terminology by using wrong terminology.
They didn't even used to eat the rice. The rice was just packaging for the fish to preserve it.
Ain't that a neat fact. I got a lot of facts I can share, too. But I don't usually go into all that. I think I would just come off as overbearing...and who likes that?
I like ice cream cone sushi, too, BTW. That is not the correct name for it. It's still yummy, either way.
Sushi doesn't mean rice. It's rice and something else. You can say it does, and I can say "Spaghetti and meatballs" is "Spaghetti" (which is what people call it, from time to time) , but I would be wrong. That's the point. You were correcting them for using wrong terminology by using wrong terminology.
No, I was trying to correct a fundamental and widespread misunderstanding. When you mention sushi to someone who hasn't tried it, they usually respond with something about not liking raw fish, or not knowing if they would. They see "sushi" and "raw fish" as synonyms, when they are not. Matter of fact, there are quite a few kinds of sushi that are vegan, and others that use cooked fish. The "sour taste" rice, however is the common theme running through all of it.
It's not about me being right, or about me being overbearing, it's about making sushi more accessible to people. That's what I care about. There's really something for almost anybody in a sushi restaurant, if they can only get past the misunderstanding that sushi is just raw fish.
Quote:
I like ice cream cone sushi, too, BTW. That is not the correct name for it. It's still yummy, either way.
Yeah, it's temaki, as I'm sure you know. It tastes the same whether or not you use the correct name, but I personally think it's more fun to learn the authentic names for things, as well as the authentic ways of serving and eating them. You can do whatever you wish.
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