[Sca-cooks] Concerning Ryori Monogatari

[Solveig Throndardottir]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Sólveig!
> Tangentially, I was researching foreign restaurants in Paris and there is no mention of sushi at those from before the Eighties. My guess is that the lack of seaweed was one major reason. For that matter, it seems that Americans made it popular first and the French followed (making it worthwhile to import seaweed).
Generally speaking, seaweed was generally available in North America long before sushi became popular. In around 1980, I ate at the first sushi shop in Washington, DC. It was at the time a sparsely and rather cheaply furnished fairly small establishment with little patronage largely by local Japanese expats, Japan scholars, and diplomats. 

Actually, nori is a dry processed product and is much less of a limiting ingredient than the fish is. Sushi grade fish tends to be more expensive than ordinary fish. Incidentally, for health reasons, you should probably only use fish that was flash frozen at sea. Flash freezing largely avoids the problems with freezing and kills parasites. I once purchased a side of fish at a Japanese supermarket in Cambridge, MA only to throw it out when we spotted a worm crawling out of it. 

Your Humble Servant
Sólveig Þróndardóttir
Amateur Scholar