Raw death fish, anyone?

When I was a kid, if you offered to feed someone raw fish, they might offer to punch you in the nose. There'd probably be loud discussions about trichinosis and liver flukes or some other such things as well. The was no raw food movement. Civilized people knew how to make fire. Raw was for wild animals and wild people; the last decent person to survive on raw food on purpose was John the Baptist.

But by the time I was in college everyone was sucking down sushi as fast as they could get it. It was the 80's, when Japan was about to take over the world, and I guess we were preemptively surrendering the culture, starting with karaoke and sushi. That was before we knew about Japanese game shows, hikikomori, adult adoption, capsule hotels, and anime schoolgirls with the oversize chestal endowments of fully grown Vegas showgirls, and got to wondering whether atomic bomb fallout made people insane decades after the fact.

Anyway, despite the omnipresence of sushi in New York, I've managed to get this far in life without eating any. I'm not a big fish lover---many Americans aren't; there's probably more fish animosity here per capita than in any other country---but I will go for unchallenging fish like cod or tuna if it's cooked.

My wife, sushi fan that she is, thought she ought to break me in.

Yep, knitted me a sushi. Seaweed-wrapped, she said. Sprayed it with a ginger air freshener to make it more authentic.Very cute.

Well, I can't say for sure if I'd like the real thing yet, but this one tasted pretty good.