Sushi in France

 

I have had some grand plans for writing about food in France, but I keep shying away from it. I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. And French food is both everything you would think and dream it would be, and yet it is as incredibly stupid and disappointing as everywhere else in the world too, both of them at the same time! Which makes for a mightier subject than I ever feel entirely ready to take on.

 So what if I start off small?

What if I start of with just a wee bit of sushi?

Who doesn't love sushi?

The French love sushi!

Oh my god the French love sushi so much! They love it almost as much as boulangeries, more than fromageries, and about equal with pizzerias.

Or, at least, one could conclude that by how very many many places sell sushi here. The cheap neighborhood grocery chains sell sushi here. And so do the big supermarkets. Small neighborhood sushi shops sell sushi here, and so do slightly bigger and nicer ones. There is a massive sushi chain devoted to only selling sushi here, with so many representative stores I couldn't begin to count them. And then there's the other sushi chain, equally big, exactly like the first one so that I can never remember which is which, equally devoted to selling sushi. And then there are equally as many poke bowl type restaurants on top of that, which are just a clever way to sell unassembled sushi in a bowl for the same price.

There is sushi everywhere here!

And every single place has the exact same sushi. 

And all of the sushi, grocery store and nice restaurant, is for pretty close to the same price. 

Tuna, Salmon, Dourade (a kind of sea bream), and maybe cooked shrimp, and then all of them in rolls with avocado maybe, or cream cheese (?). Maybe a cucumber makes an appearance. If there's a big menu a fifth seafood might appear, like scallop or fake crab.

It's a little disappointing. But honestly, I didn't have the easiest time finding good sushi in variety in Japan either. Though eventually I sussed it out. And at least their grocery store sushi was cheap and good.

I know this possibly makes me sound like a malcontent.

But that happens sometimes because I am a malcontent.

And I find myself constantly waxing nostalgic about the appearance of sushi in the U.S. in the nineteen eighties. What a revalation that was! If only they had a branch of L.A.'s "Somethings Fishy" here now (no, was that really the name?!). That typical early eighties sushi bar had no 20 dollar rolls of tuna, salmon and avocado smothered in various mayonaisses and fruits. No, it had 30 different kinds of fish! It was wild. I could get an oyster with a quail egg! They used crab! Unagi, hamachi, spanish mackeral, uni, oh lord, the uni!

Sorry. I got hungry and I have wandered off point.

Eh?

What was my point?

Of course I have a point!

Oh. Yes. It's a big one.

Are you sure you're ready for it? Can you handle it?

Okay.

The French are very, very, very good at their food.

But they're not so good at anyone elses.

And I'm not even mentioning the tacos.