A lot of people think that “sushi” is raw fish. Sushi refers to the rice; the sliced raw fish is sashimi. Without that little fact, the content at this link (which is from the Associated Press) wouldn’t make much sense.
Long story short, a new type of sushi bar is attracting a female clientelle in Tokyo: one offering slices and cuts of raw meat other than fish, such as beef, chicken, pork, deer, and horse. The rice is being sold with balsamic vinegar to offset the different meat better than the usual regular variety.
Now, I do see a rather obvious problem. I can understand raw fish of various sorts being entirely sanitary, but raw pork…? Isn’t that dangerous, since pigs are just close enough to humans (in body temp and so on) for a lot of bugs to be able to make the species jump? Well, I’m not their meat inspector, so I’m not going to speculate.
All I know for sure is that it’s an excellent opportunity to underline how the fish is not the sushi, so this, too, is sushi, without any abuse of language. I just don’t intend to vouch for it being good sushi, but someone likes it.
