Does anyone else admit to hating sushi?

[Magpie]

My Asians proudly make their own!

Now, that warm sushi combined with the word 'savory' sounds very interesting. Hmmmm. I will look into that.
I do love fish. Thanks!

PS we are cruising in April and they have a sushi bar. The cruisers seem to think that their sushi is pretty good. I will check that out, hopefully they will have the warm savory type! Otherwise I will have to actually go to a sushi place, not sure I want to do that!

Muushka, I'm curious... why did you quote me?

 

[IdesOmarch]

This thread is making me hungry for sushi.

 

[Muushka]

Muushka, I'm curious... why did you quote me?

Oh, I know why. Because I saw that you were right, but left the thread for a while (used multi-quote). So when I came back, I had forgotten that I quoted you. By the way, good catch! Knitted sushi!

 

[Magpie]

Oh, I know why. Because I saw that you were right, but left the thread for a while (used multi-quote). So when I came back, I had forgotten that I quoted you. By the way, good catch! Knitted sushi!

Oh good, I was just worried you thought I was saying that sushi isn't edible. Me, I find the quality restaurant stuff quite nice, but I never know what to order. I think the fast-food sushi they sell at the deli counter is dreadful, but my son likes it.

And I love novelty knits!

This blog often includes pictures like those sushi rolls...

http://www.handmadebymother.blogspot.com/

Check out the grenades in the latest post!

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

I think that point is missing some significant aspects of the human condition.

If we simply relied on our base instincts (i.e., not developing a taste for anything, but just sticking with the tastes we have innately), we'd be drinking sugar water or blood. I'm not necessarily knocking folks who like the things that our base instincts drive us to eat, but the reality is that we generally derive substantial satisfaction from tastes that we develop, beyond our base instincts.

Beyond that, I think anyone who claims that they don't develop tastes, and instead only are driven by their base instincts, are not thinking it through. We generally don't think about how much of what we like is actually a reflection of a developed taste rather than a base instinct. However, all you need to do is go to WDW, on the Dining Plan, with a 10 or 11 year old, and you'll get a very clear demonstration of the phenomenon, since, if you're anything like me, you'll get this nagging sense of "oh gosh" realizing that you've spent all this money on 10+ year old dining credits for your child, only to have your child turn up their nose at practically every one of the most favored items on each table-service restaurant menu. Children naturally develop an appreciation for more and more foods as they grow older.

The question is whether we decide to to stop growing our appreciation. There is nothing wrong, necessarily, in doing so, at least within a relatively narrow area like food. My SIL has a very limited palate. She therefore loses out on the opportunity to derive pleasure from the enjoyment of myriad culinary options. That's okay. However, it is clear that her decision to restrict her tastes to the foods that she ate (basically) when she was 10 years old means that she is excluded from a whole host of pleasures that many of the rest of us have access to. By the same token, I'm sure she derives pleasure from some things, having nothing to do with food, that many of the rest of us don't. Presumably, it's enough.

What benefit is there to not trying to develop new tastes? The mechanics of developing a taste are such that you start out by not really liking something, and then it's okay, and then it's better than okay - so much better that the negative aspects of that short period of time that you didn't really like it is more than worth it. However, that's not the way it always works; the "investment" in trying to develop a taste for something doesn't always pay off I suppose.

In the end, though, I cannot help but wonder what value there is in our stopping the growth of what we appreciate, even within a relatively narrow area like food. Life is short, but not so short that we can't afford to spend a little bit of time to earn greater returns on that investment later. I prefer to look at life as a vast library of experiences, and see great value in trying to work my way through every kind of book.

I'm not claiming that I don't develop tastes, or that I don't go out of my way to develop tastes. What I'm saying is that I don't eat or drink things that I find unpleasant for the simple purpose of getting accustomed to them.

Another example would be music. There are some kinds of music that I liked the first time I heard them -- some African music for example. There are other kinds such as certain kinds of Asian music, or opera, or certain kinds of jazz that I can hear, appreciate as complex, and think "I'd like to learn more about this", and make an effort to develop an understanding and taste for them. I might go out and purchase a CD by them, or tune in to them on the radio, and I can imagine that as I learn more and become accustomed to the rhythms and the tones I would come to love them. Then there is music that makes my ears bleed. KIDSBOP or heavy metal or Shari Lewis's "Song that never ends" all fit this category. It's possible that if I went out and bought KIDSBOP CD's and played them every day on my commute, and strove to hear the subtle (are there subtleties in KIDSBOP) interplay of the instruments and the fresh young voices, that I would eventually come to love it. But you know what? I'll never find out because I have a limited number of commutes to spend listening to music and I'm never going to choose KIDSBOP. Life is too short to spend it suffering like that.

If I move someplace that has a culture where Coffee is inesecapble, like perhaps Ethiopia, and it's rude to refuse, I might well develop a taste for it. But in my country I can get hot chocolate or tea in a Starbucks cup and be good to go. Eating or drinking out is expensive and I'm not going to waste my money on something that turns my stomach. Meanwhile, I'll explore the subtleties of Thai food or some other cuisine that I like and may grow to love.

I imagine that the OP feels the same way about sushi that I feel about coffee. I will happily eat her portion, but otherwise don't really care. In fact, I'm glad as the more people who hate sushi the shorter the wait for a table for me!

 

[perdidochas]

I really tried to like it. It seems like everyone raves about it, but we went to a Japanese resturant tonight and....yech! Is there a stronger word? I can't believe anyone can tolerate it, let alone like it. Yet, it seems everyone I know loves it. Really? Do you really like it or just say you do because it's the "in" thing to like sushi. Can anyone else admit to disliking sushi?

While I like it (and have been eating it since before it was "in"), I can understand why others wouldn't like it. I like raw food, soy sauce, horseradish (wasabi is just strong horseradish) and rice, so it was right up my alley.

 

[bicker]

I'm not claiming that I don't develop tastes, or that I don't go out of my way to develop tastes. What I'm saying is that I don't eat or drink things that I find unpleasant for the simple purpose of getting accustomed to them.

Right, but I'm saying that there's no difference between the two. Read what you wrote there: You implied that you do develop tastes, right? So that means you do eat things that you find unpleasant for the simple purpose of getting accustomed to them. The difference is that some things you choose to view in those terms, and some other things you choose to view in some other terms.

It might be interesting to dig down into the reasons why you chose to develop a taste for one thing and not another, but I doubt it is important enough.

My point, though, is that you're choosing (perhaps not consciously) to view things differently before the fact versus after the fact. Your music example was interesting, but I think the music you choose to label that which makes your "ears bleed" is simply music that for other reasons you have an antipathy that makes you unreceptive to viewing it as something worthwhile acquiring a taste for, while the music that you decided to "appreciate as complex" is fundamentally no different at the start, but for other reasons you've decided to be more receptive to that kind of music.

And I don't think you should view this as a bad-or-good thing. I'm talking from the standpoint of someone who hated something, like you hate the music that makes your "ears bleed" and then later, when an attitude within me changed, I became more receptive to developing a taste for it. We're not that different physically. Our taste buds, ears, eyes, nose and fingers are practically identical, with regard to how they detect stimuli and how they transmit that stimuli to our brains, which are also practically identical. So the anything anyone enjoys is almost surely something that everyone could enjoy. It is only our attitudes that determine whether we personally have the capacity or not.

 

[perdidochas]

Yes, I was and an awesome one at that.

I don't eat raw fish for the same reason that I don't eat raw meat. It's...it's raw. The funny thing is that the same people that eat raw fish are the ones that are so diligent about using cooking thermometers to be sure that meat has been cooked to it's proper temperature to kill all the possible bacteria. I'm not sure how that is reconciled in one's mind.

A fish eating other fish gets it's food pretty fresh...it's still kicking and screaming on the way down, but sushi is handled by people that might have been picking their nose just moments before. Cook it...I'll eat it...otherwise I am just not interested.

If the fish has been kept to sushi standards, it has fairly few bacteria. Also, most fish used in sushi are open ocean fish that don't have bacteria that live well in human beings. That is why most salmon (freshwater and inshore saltwater) sushi is cooked or smoked.

Also, in terms of the boogers comment, did you know that at many restaurants the servers make the salads bare handed (and out of sight of the customers). More worries about boogers in conventional food (especially buffett style) than in sushi.

Finally, sushi basically means rice with vinegar. You can't have sushi without rice and vinegar, but you can have it without raw fish (my kids love California rolls which have "fake" crab (which is cooked fish)).

 

[lacrosse_lady72]

I like it but I hate seafood. I'll either forget the fact that seaweed is seafood and get a vegetarian sushi, or get the sushi with that transparent white stuff (idk what it's called but it takes the place of the seaweed). I can't eat it though with any kind of fish in it.

 

[JessicaR]

More fish for me.

 

[michael61]

How can anyone not love it. I have gone to asia just to have it, well not really. Next to Disney it is the next best thing.

 

[JuanLagarto]

I've never tasted it

 

[Ppufi]

I don't like sushi. And yes, I've had it at a fairly well-known sushi place, at least amongst the Disney crowd. It's gross. The taste. The texture. Yuck.

I don't like coffee. It tastes horrible. I don't want to learn to like coffee, either. So don't try to talk me into liking coffee. I'll stick with hot chocolate or non-coffee frozen drinks at Starbucks, thank you.

I don't like beer. I don't want to learn to like beer. In fact, I don't like most alcohol very much because the drinks usually just don't taste good to me. Except for frozen ones that are more like a dessert - especially Mudslides. And maybe an occasional amaretto sour.

I don't like beef or pork that isn't well-done. I don't want to learn to like red or pink meat, even if everyone says I may as well be eating beef jerky as I eat my steak. Rare meat tastes gross and just reminds me that I have dead animal in my mouth. I don't want to learn to like gross. And besides, I like beef jerky .

Wow, are we the same person?