Just Bento

I listened to your clip - congratulations on being the inaugural Gastrosexual (hehe). You sounded great! Interesting that you are thinking of making sushi from trout - I guess you are thinking of masuzushi? Do make sure your trout is very fresh, and from clean waters (freshwater fish is more prone to parasites than seawater fish, which is why it's not used much for sushi). You'll need to salt the fish and marinate it in a vinegar-mix...sushi vinegar should work fine though maybe with a bit more sugar. Let us know how it turns out!

Thanks Maki :-)

It was very goofy and very fun, the whole process.. and it *was* quite an involved process considering that I wrote my little entry essay on a lark! Actually speaking with Lynne Rossetto Kasper was kind of wonderful --she's a warm smart person, and I've gotten scads of nice emails from all over as a result of the broadcast.

That's a good point with regard to water quality. Some of the trout I catch are stocked by Vermont Fish & Wildlife, and the quality of these fish is very good, even though there's a deep-seated and romantic notion that native (i.e., non-stocked) trout are better. The truth is, in our modern age, there are relatively few native trout left here in Vermont, and also, the Fish & Wildlife people have gotten very good at raising trout for stocking ponds, lakes, and rivers. When I was a kid, the fish hatcheries used to feed fish with Purina dogfood! That made them taste, hm, kind of liver-y, and not in a nice way. Now they've developed foods which are much closer to the natural diet of the fishies, and consequently they taste much better.

Thank you for the masuzushi information! I will definitely post the results of any trout sushi experimenting :-)