Pick the odd one out
Sashimi, as it is best known, is raw fish. The word is also used for raw beef, horse, deer, turkey and any number of other animals that we might choose to eat without cooking.
Last weekend I was struck by a sudden revelation as I hooked into a plate of sashimi. Amongst all of the raw food there is often octopus as you can see in the front of the photo. It is finely sliced and quite white throughout. It is delicious but it is most definitely cooked. Usually it is steamed and the outside skin turns a wonderful red colour. It is neither tough nor soft, but sort of bitey.
This lead me to wonder if there are any other cooked sashimi ingredients. What is it that defines Sashimi anyway. The only definitions that I can come up with point to raw ingredients, so maybe octopus doesn’t actually count in the sashimi category. I’d love to hear about your experiences with sashimi. Can you think of any other cooked sashimi and what is the weirdest thing you have tried to eat raw.
Thanks
Tom
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POSTED IN: Japanese
1 opinion for Pick the odd one out
Chesu
Dec 15, 2007 at 4:36 am
I forget where it is that’s famous for horse sashimi.. somewhere in Kyushu? Eh.
Depending on where you go in Japan, everything, or nothing, is exotic… For instance, wherever it was that I had horse sashimi, it was fairly common. However, the two most unusual (for me) types of sashimi I’ve had are whale, and wild boar.
Japan is allowed to harvest whales for ‘research’, right? You should have to fill out some sort of form after eating it… It doesn’t really taste like much. It tastes like whale, I guess… Some sashimi has a distinctive (if mild) flavor to it, but whale tastes like… like meaty konnyaku.
As for wild boar, it tastes about as you would expect it to, but better. So much better. Imagine how wild game birds taste compared to commercial chicken. Now, transfer that difference to pigs. Lean pork, from an animal that’s been eating the local wild nuts, mushrooms, and.. whatever boars eat. It was fantastic… and that’s just the sashimi! I can only dream (with romantic little stars in my eyes) of how it would taste cooked.. or as bacon! If you ever get word of someone’s father/grandfather/friend/coworker/neighbor/cousin’s former roommate’s sister’s daughter’s teacher killing a wild boar, SHOW UP. Invited or not.
…Or maybe the boar sashimi was just served with good, quality shoyu. Who knows.
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