#eaglehobo

He read it

“The Viking Sushi

Listening to a podcast featuring James Delingpole and Toby Young, the unlikely story of the Viking Sushi of Iceland was told and heard. And what a remarkably absurd combination this thing is. Thing might be too strong a word. It is a “product", and one designed for know no better tourists, that has to possess some of the most half-baked (if not entirely raw) branding ever encountered outside of the "American Burgers!" thing that the Japanese sometimes do, making something like an American burger, but always not quite.

You don’t want to read this if you are someone known as a weaboo who is a person prepared to bend reality for a higher, dreamier world. But it might be time to say it. Put simply there is nothing complex at all about sushi in any of its forms, despite the kabuki like rituals and all deference for them displayed for the bleary eyed "gaijins" to swallow up on their tour of the far east.

"Look, it's raw fish on a small plate that goes around in circles, and it's even open until midnight, and these Orientals do speak English so well", except they usually don't. Similarly, there is little complexity to the ancient "Viking" art of taking fish from the sea when needing it, and eating it, whether raw or cooked, or whether with a pot of stewed root vegetables and beans or oats, or without, little difficulty indeed when compared to what Europeans were doing elsewhere, and what Scandinavians themselves were doing with other foods at the time on higher and dryer shores away from the immediate urgencies of their long (or short) ocean voyages. The fare of the Viking "Grautar-Halli" was complex indeed, and growing wheat and barley was an art in and of itself.

So to read of Viking Sushi is horrifying at least to those who might know better and who have actually left their bedroom sometime in the past few years. To equate the Japanese and their "complex cuisine" of fish on a piece of soured rice, with that of even the smallest bakery or bistro in the remote reaches of Europe is to compare the Japanese trains of the early 19th century with the European “Snake” and *Viper” British locomotives - the Japanese simply didn't have anything like trains at all, unless you count a wooden cart with steel straps some kind of "train" and in its defence it does look like an oversized Rick-Shaw. Well they didn’t have any until much later when they stole this marvelous invention from Europe, along with printing presses, modern gunpowder and weaponry, shipbuilding, postal services as we known them, and electricity, the radio, satellite communications, the telephone, the light bulb, modern medicine, aircraft, motors and vehicles, modern steel technology (which didn't need to be folded 10,000 times because it was, well, already quite good) and just about everything else - the list would take some years to read out. And it continues to grow: it's a sorry practice of wholesale theft and "borrowing with a polite bow" that continues to this day. To compare any French, English, German, Austrian, Russian or other complex cuisine - even Danish or Swedish - to that of the Japanese whether a soup, a piece of fish, or the very very complex "gyoza" with a dash of "wasabi", would to rid the Japanese themselves of any dignity - "bish bash bosh put a bit of fish on the rice - and very nice photos in magazines innit!"

After all, when visiting Tokyo, or living there, their French and Italian and British restaurants are considered to be at the height of their eating culture, attended well by local businessmen and "wannabe CEOs", and they would be begging on their knees were these institutions to depart their slightly presently overheated shores (although they don't often even appreciate some of the best and more complex dishes, such as the Salon Beuschel, a hearty Italian Ragout, or Profiterole, Eclair, Millefeuille, Souffle -- even the grand Beef Wellington itself). Before entering such an establishment, and sometime after getting of the plane, you might wish to ensure to bring your dosimeter (another European invention they borrowed) because of yet another technology these nice people couldn't quite use properly, or foresee the apparent dangers of as it seems. “Take another look will you! It's a set of volcanic and tectonically active islands you noddies!” was the cry of 2011. Of course, mentioning that such a possibility of contamination exists is itself something considered haram - open and honest conversation is one technology they have decided not to pilfer from the wandering round-eyes, even if they do like to wear our style of clothes (especially favoring the three piece suit with vest) and thereby hope to pretend to be "western" even if only in some small manner.

So, in summary “Viking Sushi” smushi" Just call it what it is - "Viking style fish. And, raise a glass of Moet or any one of the Rhenish wines while appreciating what we already have. Forget the cries "But but I added the word sushi because I am so international, aren't I?" - the Vikings invented such a thing on the way to Greenland and Sicily and thought naught of it - when the Japanese were still losing their boats in the Yellow Sea to a 2-point squall. They had no need to promote it to being their existential cultural focus. Or otherwise, be ready to live in a world beset with "Oh-golly-gosh, look! A 'European train'! I cannot believe it ! Oh my! It's like the Europeans actually invented it themselves without the assistance of the head-choppers eating raw fish on the other side of the world!" Frankly speaking, I shall be content in good company with a long glass of Bolly to wash down the Capozzelli di Agnello.”