Sushi seems to be like marmite, you either love it or hate it. It is also something which, I know from experience, is very difficult to make.
I can understand why people may be put off by it: the raw fish, the fiddly almost unmasterable chopsticks, the scorching hot wasabi, the fact that it falls apart all over the table and your lap as soon as you bite into it, but I love it.
It’s a phrase that I’m sure most of us have heard at some stage in our lives: you’re enjoying a particularly tasty morsel and, in your efforts to ensure you do not miss a scrap, you scrape the plate clean only to be met by a sarcastic chorus of ‘why don’t you just eat the plate?’ Perhaps that was just me!
Anyway, for me, the idea does actually make a lot of sense. Why not serve your meal or dessert on something that will actually add something to it?
There was a time when I was not really a fan of American sweets. Although I had been known to enjoy a packet of Twizzlers or Charleston Chews, I had always found their chocolate and cookies slightly lacking in sweetness. I don’t know why but they just did not seem to pack enough of a punch to satisfy my sweet tooth.
However, that was before I was introduced to the joys of chocolate covered peanut butter and double stuffed cookies, two treats which more than make up for any sweet deficiencies exhibited by the other confectionaries produced by our American cousins.
When I was a kid I loved playdough. All I needed was a tub of that and some Lego and I could keep myself occupied for hours, building everything from dinosaurs and spaceships to flowers and plates of fish and chips. I was a strange child!
