Everyday sushi…not!

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By Lingual ⋅ December 23, 2008 ⋅

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There was this lame second-rate actor, Jeremy Piven, who recently withdrew from his role in David Mamet’s Speed the Plow on Broadway because of high mercury count in his body. I guess the dude was wiped out. No wonder—It turns out that he was having sushi “several” times a week!

This is where Americans get it so wrong. Sushi is not supposed to be a daily meal. Ask any Japanese person if they eat sushi that often and answer is no. The cheap ones you see sold at your neighborhood deli are mostly made by Koreans or Chinese, or other dubious non-Japanese entrepreneurs. Go to an authentic Japanese-run sushi take-out store and you’ll see that mercury-laden tunas are only a tiny part of sushi menu, but you see healthier options such as the ones wrapped in fried bean curd or pickled vegetable rolls.

Nigiri-zushi (the ones you see with a slab of seafood on top) is usually eaten by Japanese at home by ordering a delivery on a special occasion, say, Dad got a promotion, or the kid got into a good school or something. If the Japanese would have home-made sushi, it’d be a hand-wrapped sushi party where everyone would arrange their own ingredients of their choice, or a mother would cook up vinegared rice with veggies, eggs, and cooked shrimp on top. She wouldn’t even bother to roll them up.

I dated an American guy once who said he liked Japanese food and asked me if I could make sushi for him at home. What am I? A sushi chef? Why do you think those professionals go through years of training? You don’t handle a variety of raw fish at home.

And here’s another news to those who think sushi is healthy. A fatty tuna dipped thoroughly in soy sauce is not. It’s extremely high in fat and sodium chloride. You’d have a heart disease and a stroke by indulging too much. So go ahead, knock yourself out.

And please don’t tell the Chinese and the Indians that sushi is good, because the billions of novice sushi eaters will wipe out the tuna population in no time.