The best part of Epcot center, next to riding inside that giant Ball, is walking around the World Showcase. Seeing the different types of clothing art and geography, hearing the music, and tasting the foods is a blast. Sure it's all surface level immersion, but it's about the closest many will ever get outside of a National Geographic Special to visiting Germany, China or any of the other countries. While we may find the differences a little too odd for comfort, I think everyone should use what opportunities are given them to explore a bit.
Last Friday I went on that date with Stacy to the sushi restaurant. Although it's not strictly a sushi restaurant. It's actually a fusion restaurant that happens to serve sushi. Fusion themed foods seem to be all the rage lately and I don't think I'm buying into it. I don't want a Mediterranean flavored Brazilian chicken. I haven't properly experienced either so before we go mixing things up I want to try the traditional dishes first. But in the end it didn't matter anyway. It was Friday so we stuck with seafood, and in this case it was traditional sushi.
Sushi is one of those foods that everyone but me seems to love. And the people who love it always seem to have this pomposity about them. Like they are somehow more cultured for liking the disgusting dish and they want everyone to know how experienced they are with Eastern Cuisine. It's uncooked fish thrown into a bunch of rice, wrapped with a wet leaf. Any rural 4 year old routinely makes similar "dishes" every summer day out in their back yards. But maybe those lovers get to me because even though I know I can't stand sushi, I still find myself trying it from time to time to see if I've finally figured out what I've been missing.
Quick tangent while we're on food. People who cannot spell should not be allowed to name things. Salmon has an 'L' in it, but is pronounced 'samon'. As though I wasn't already stressed enough going on this first date in several years, now I have to worry about how to pronounce the two syllable name of a fish.
In the end it didn't matter, because my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to try to determine once more what I was missing with sushi. I suppose, considering how worked up everyone gets about the dish, that I was expecting the raw fish would put my taste buds into a state of unbeknownst bliss. Unfortunately the sushi fell a bit short. Stacy, apparently enjoyed it but then decided to start experimenting with some of the spices. When she first tried the green wasabi, she had such a beautiful twinkle in her eye. But it quickly turned to tears.
And I think that's what amazes me most about different cultures. It's the different tastes that people have. How anyone can actually enjoy wasabi is beyond me. Tonight I went to an Asian grocery market here in town and picked up a few items. The two I want to talk about are hot wasabi green peas and red bean ice-cream.
Being a Christian I am told that true happiness in life will come not by hoarding but by sharing. Well I think that's about right for these green peas because the only enjoyment that can come from them is watching other people eat them.
The ice-cream isn't bad but I'm just as confused about how it was created as I am by how someone thought horseradish and anything can go well together. Seriously, take a half gallon of vanilla ice-cream and add a can of Busches baked beans. That to me is about on par with the level of thinking required to add red beans and vanilla ice-cream. But the remarkable thing is that it works. No it's not anything to write home about (yes I realize I'm writing a blog about it), but it's not bad either. It tastes a lot like a very weakly flavored chocolate ice-cream.
Maybe that can be this week's goal for you. Go out to the grocery and buy one new item you've never tried before and share the experience with somebody.
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