Weird Wednesday: Sushi in Texas

I grew up in a small town in Northwestern Illinois right on the Mississippi River.  I could spit and hit Iowa (not cultured, maybe, but it sounds like a Mark Twain phrase, doesn’t it?).  And, yes my children, I had to walk to school every day because holidays had not been invented yet.

So, I walked.  Miles.  In the snow.  Uphill both ways.  Barefoot.  Across broken glass.  So, don’t complain about those two blocks to the bus stop, OK?

If you had told me then that I would one day eat raw fish and enjoy it I would have told you to stop sniffing the goop Mom used with her hair curlers.  Raw food was limited to a few vegetables and fruits where I come from.  Any meat that still had any juice left in it, much less raw, was considered unfit for human consumption.

But, then I moved to California.  Free-wheeling, anything goes California was a bit of a culture shock for this kid from the sticks.  But, I adjusted well.  One day, after performing a miracle for my cult (when in Rome…), I tried sushi and was hooked. 

And not because it was so fresh the hook was still in it. 

California turned me into a sushi lover.   Then, it came time to move to Texas.  If you had told me then that I would one day eat raw fish in Texas and like it I would have told you to stop sniffing just about everything in California.

But, sushi is everywhere I turn in Texas.  One of the best sushi places in the Austin area is in a strip mall in the suburbs owned by a good old boy who employs chefs trained in Japan.  And the first thing you see when you enter the big box, Texas founded/Texas-grown grocery store chain is a sushi stand.

It’s quite a culinary cycle, really.  Sushi started out as fast food in Japan.  Turned into a delicacy.  Migrated across the waters as a strange, exotic thing.  Now, it’s become fast food again.

Heck, Wal-Mart has sushi of sorts.  Go figure.

And after I polish off my fatty tuna ngiri, I need to go put on a big, ugly hat and drill for oil.  When in Rome…