Losing My (sushi) Religion

For the last 15 years or so I have liked sushi quite a lot. I'm definitely a lightweight, no saba or other really strongly flavored fish for me, thanks.

However, the last 4-5 times I have sushi I have just ....not enjoyed it. I posted in the thread on the Dempster fish house that I had a piece I did could not stand and since that time I have had the same reaction from several places.

Has anyone else ever had their tastes just change like that? It had been a while since I had sushi beofre this latest round but I haven't been sick or anything else out of the ordinary.

I still love cooked fish, in fact I had an amazing teriyaki salmon a couple weeks ago I made at home that was as perfect a piece as I have ever had.

Strangely enough, I think I can relate. Sushi used to be a fairly special meal (due to availability and expense), however after moving to Chicago and finding an abundance of relatively affordable seafood retailers, it became a "regular" weekly meal.

My palate in the beginning was fairly limited. Maki and maybe unagi.

Then I found that I'd over-unagi'd myself.

I moved on to salmon and for a period sake was a favorite - I could eat plates and plates of raw salmon, then... as others have mentioned in the past, I over-salmon-ed myself (raw & cooked).

After "wearing out" unagi & salmon, I moved on to loving maguro, then slowly all the other exotic cuts of tuna, as well as other species including bluefin and bigeye (vs plain old yellowfin).

I added fish roe to my palate, all the various shellfish, large raw spot prawns, any other type of fish besides tuna, eel or salmon...

Then... we realized we'd over-sushi'd ourselves... of course it was only possible b/c we'd always made sushi at home (thereby at a fraction of the cost). This also made it possible to have sushi 2-3 times in a week months on end.

Just like anything, variety is the spice of life and we'd simply overdone it.

For yourself, perhaps adding some varieties in your fish/shellfish may re-spark your interest in sushi.

For us, it'll just have to be abstinence...

Bad sushi can definitely turn you off to any sushi for quite some time. Unfortunately, there's quite a bit of bad sushi to be had in this town.

This has happened to me before. Wait awhile...you'll get a craving. When you decide you're ready, go to a top notch place (Katsu, Mirai) and splurge. That should hopefully get you back in the saddle.

Well for me, it was because of this website. I started to learn about eating local and tried incorporating that in my life. Then I read The Human. The Orchid and the Octocupus by Jacques Cousteau and I realized that eating sushi and/or fish - something that I really like - is completely wrong for me. No matter if I go high end or low end, I am supporting a market that is completely unnecessary for a mid-West state unless caught locally. Other than that, your Uni or salmon or tuna is flown in and most likely caught within the huge fishing industry. These aren't the mom and pops boats. These are commercial boats that don't care about over fishing/destructive fishing practices/not letting the spawning beds reproduce.

Funny, it's not the fish itself, but I have a hot-and-cold relationship with seaweed: sometimes I crave it, sometimes it's repulsive to me. You can follow this pattern through the ebb and flow in my pantry, because during the craving periods I inevitably over-buy nori and furikake, and then it sits there until I get cravings again, when I will run out by making onigiri and maki several times in the same week.

OTOH, I've yet to find cooked fish I enjoy as much as raw - but that probably has more to do with being raised by strict Catholics who considered friday fish a "penance."

Sparked up some sushi-interest last night w/ a purchase of some more off-the-cuff items:
1) botan ebi (spot prawns)
2) tsubugai (conch)
3) a small package of large live sea snails (baigai)

Never had the bai-gai before; they "tasted of the sea" as my spouse put it mildly... Didn't eat the snails raw, but rather grilled 'em in their shells, then picked 'em out by their operculum with my leatherman pliers.

Interestingly enough, Super H sells these canned (often on sale); I'd avoided 'em in the past simply cause they were stewed w/ added MSG.