baxterdog: CSB: we flew out to Honolulu to meet a NOAA boat and upon going to dinner found out that a member of our group wasn't as into sushi as the rest of us were. He had kept silent and just went along so maybe he didn't actually know what sushi was?

We were slurping miso soup, grabbing nigiri, rolls, sesame noodles, and pinching edamame pods when we realized one of our group wasn't eating. Apparently he had never really seen a sushi restaurant before and much preferred hot dogs over fish anyhow.

I ordered the table a round of spam musubi and he loved it but asked for a Coca Cola to back it up. Funny night.

My point is not to humiliate the guy, he was ok, just shy and didn't like new things, but he knew spam. So that helped give him some place at the table and opened him up to talking a bit. Work trips can be fun, but also scary for severe introverts. I really tried to get him to at least try the unagi. I mean, it's cooked with a teriyaki like glaze, right? Nope. More spam musubi. I tried.

I had a girlfriend in college who first introduced me to sushi.  I couldn't wrap my mind around eating raw fish, as I wasn't much of a seafood person to start with.

A couple years later, I was taken to a fancy Japanese restaurant in Lexington, Kentucky by the president of the local Japan-American group.  I forgot what I ordered (ramen?  Tempera?), but I know I didn't want to take off my shoes.

My next job in DC, most of the office would go to a sushi place once a month or so, and that might've been the one where I was introduced to tamago (egg) sushi, and the vegetable ones.  I think I stuck with the spider rolls, shrimp, and other cooked stuff.

Then I started traveling to Palo Alto a lot, and we'd always go to some really fancy place out there, and I found deep fried sushi rolls.  (They make it, dip in tempura batter, then fry it.). I would order the weird stuff, and use the rest a delivery source for wasabi, as I didn't want the actual fish taste.

It took me a couple of years of that before I got to look at sushi as something that I would actually choose to go to.

... and now I make it myself.

/has made hotdog and pickle rolls for someone who didn't like sushi
//also makes musubi
///and snacks on edamame pods with chili garlic sauce

Oh, and NHK is showing a portion of the clip in question with the person's face fuzzed out on broadcast TV.

... but it's not in their article online.

The guy licked the soy sauce dispenser at the table, then grabbed a bowl or cup from a shelf and licked that, then set it back.