I really like doing this blog. It gives me a good excuse to do things that would otherwise make me look like some weird effete glutton. So, with this excuse in mind, I have just completed a deep and complex study of a new area of the French culinary world: French sushi.
I came to France wanting to taste common American ethnic foods and how they were adapted to the French palate. Now, I guess I imagined a sushi experience in France to go something like this: I would walk into a local sushi joint, where everything on the inside, like most stuff in Paris, would be sort of weird and glowing post modern boxes. Then I would stand there for twenty minutes, trying to get the attention of one of the waitresses, who would be too busy testing John Galliano or appeasing the Germans to notice I was there. Finally, she would notice me, but her icy Medusa like stare would turn me to stone. I would never get to plunk down 140 euros to taste raw duck liver, horse meat, frogs legs or what ever else the French choose to eat because the rest of society shuns. This would then all be placed, not on top of sushi rice, but perhaps on top of The Stranger by Camus.
Well it wasn’t quite like that. First of all, apparently all sushi restaurants around the world are required to have dark wood interiors, cheap bamboo and overly laminated menus (no doubt an imperial decree). In three different places I ordered the same sort of nigiri/maki mixed sushi plate, which ranged from 12 euors to 18 euros, about what you’d pay in America. They gave me about pieces of typical salmon, tuna, white fish and a california roll and all of these sushi joints.
So how does it compare to American sushi. Sorry Sarko, but your sushi is just not as good. There isn’t as much fish per piece of rice and they don’t make interesting rolls. I know that this is hardly scientific, and that you may be saying that there is good sushi in Paris, I just haven’t found it. And while I am sure somewhere there is good sushi, these were places I just fell into off the street. But in America a random sushi place (hell, even the world famous Sushi Village in Poughkeepsie, New York, which is about as authentic and Hillary Clinton’s southern accent,) is going to have the kind of sushi I like: loads of raw fish, varied and tasty rolls, and that orange-carrot-ginger salad dressing that I would eat with a spoon were it socially acceptable.
This isn’t too say French sushi is bad. They use fresh mayonnaise on their California roll, which was surprisingly sweet and delicious, and they usually served a pickle cabbage salad first which is better than it might sound. But basically I have to give this one to America.
U.S.A! U.S.A!
