Relish

(Editor's Note: This is the third installment of Dave Lowry's four-part series on sushi. The other installments are here and here and here.

Be that as it may, wasabi-shoyu soup (left) has become deeply ingrained in the “traditions” of sushi. Anyone not following along will swiftly be shown the “right” way by “expert” and well-meaning companions. They need to hear the story of Paolo and Francesca.

Both footloose in Paris that first summer after college graduation and they meet one sunny afternoon in the Louvre when they find themselves staring at the same painting. Francesca asks, Don’t you think Corot’s insistence on realism played a far greater role on Impressionism than, say, Millet’s romanticization of rural life? Paolo does not; he’s always thought Corot was a hack for painting his landscapes in the studio rather than in the field. Even so, the two begin talking; Paolo suggests repairing to a nearby café for a little refreshment.

What do Paolo and Francesca order? A bottle of wine; a wedge of cheese and a loaf of bread, right? That’s because what is going on between Paolo and Francesca isn’t about the intake of their daily nutritional needs. The sharing of food is an excuse for them to spend some more time together. It facilitates a bond. The kind of bond that brings two hithertofore disparate and uninvolved components together in a harmonious fashion.

Wasabi is the cheese and bread of sushi. The restrained smear of wasabi added by the chef when he makes the sushi joins the slightly sweet and vinegar of the rice with the luxuriant fats and protein of the topping. Wasabi contributes just a hint of a spicy spark that brings the two separate elements into a happy, healthy whole. Soy sauce adds the same dimension as does the wine at Paolo and Francesca’s first little tête-à-tête. It is lubrication. It’s all just the catalyst that assists in that wonderful bonding.

All right, now imagine: same date, same café. Only instead of the bread, cheese, and wine, Paolo and Francesca sat down to an entire roast goose, candied yams; a feast like the Cratchits had after Scrooge’s nocturnal visitations and he showed up with half the stock of a West End London Safeway in tow. Whole different scenario, no? The food would be at the center of the experience. Francesca and Paolo would be concentrating on the food rather than on each other. They’d be too bloated to want to do anything but waddle back to their respective hotels and fall into a calorically induced coma the rest of the day. Not good. Instead, with the bread, the cheese and wine, the two linger on into the afternoon. They eventually marry, settle down in a hip-roofed Colonial Revival home on an elm-shaded half acre in Kirkwood, where Paolo starts a successful consulting firm; Francesca raises their talented and handsome children and directs productions at a local community theatre.

You want Paolo and Francesca never to get together, fine. Whip up your slurry of wasabi and shoyu and ruin it all for them. Just don’t count yourself much of a romantic. Or a sushi connoisseur.

I hope the tale of Paolo and Francesca will convince you to at least try sushi with just the wasabi put on it by the itamae, dipping it before you eat in unadulterated soy sauce. It might not be easy. A crack habit can be easier and less socially stigmatizing to break than a wasabi addiction. There will probably soon be support groups for this. Don’t be surprised to see it listed as a disability by the government in the near future. Just knowing that you’ve got a problem is the first step, though, and we’re all here for you, man.