I ate (most of) this today
Originally uploaded by devanpgh.

You can’t tell, but there are three pieces of tuna there. I ate the two you can see (plus all of the avocado roll, and every molecule of garnish).

I am a lifelong vegetarian who would really, really like to be able to eat fish. My rationale for going with sashimi was as follows:

1. Raw fish seems far less alien to me than cooked fish. I have more of a disgust reaction at blending cooking (something familiar and food-related) with fish (something for me unfamiliar and not food-related). The explanation lies somewhere between Kristevan abjection and evolutionary psychology, but I’ll spare you the details.
2. The two times I had taken a stab at the tuna roll, the texture was devilishly ambiguous—I couldn’t tell fish from rice. Having just a big piece of fish in front of me seemed like a better way to determine whether I could really do this. It also felt like something of a thrown gauntlet, and so I hoped my stubborn side would carry me some of the way through.

So, the texture of the meat was totally alien, though somewhat unobjectionable. No analogy can quite suffice here, but I’d say it was something like semi-chilled Jujyfruit rejects that hadn’t had the chance to set up properly. Again, foreign and weird but somewhat tolerable.

What got me were the stringier, white layers (fat, right?) between the red. I gagged one time thinking about this while I chewed.

My game plan here is to try to take down some sashimi once or twice every week. I’m hoping to desensitize myself. Thoughts?