“Mukozuke is a course so simplistic that the flavor is reflected from your own state of patience and acceptance.”
Before me lay a wavering azure plate, irregular and long, polished but dimpled. Two elegant pieces of sashimi swam within the dips of three miniature waves on the plate, each sliced under half an inch of thickness. They were mirror images of one another with silvery sleek skin barely visible, save a highlight on their bottom side. I plucked one up carefully and reviewed the underside where the most amazing smoked aroma, delicate but confident, struck my palate. I closed my eyes and rested the sashimi in my mouth for just a second and tried not to speed the process by chewing…but failed.
The cool, fresh meat was something like the best tuna I’ve ever tried, but more so in every way. Its slightly brittle skin compressed and invited the smoke to come out and dance with the rest of the soft fish. I tasted the sea in all of its splendour, and half-expected to find soot on my fingers from building the fire myself on some ancient shore.
“You look to the east and you know where your journey must take you, into the unfamiliar, into the dark woods and steep slopes. Your heart is refusing, as is your mind. Your feet, however, they move beneath you and carry you off through the pathways until they too disappear, and nothing is recognizable.
“You don’t understand the plants, the trees, the hills and the flowers. All becomes new, hours upon hours pass and you are weak and confused. What if you never return? What if you disappear into this place because you have no knowledge of the land? You’ve been so isolated in your own village with what has become easy and readily available. Here and now you don’t know the surroundings and your ignorance deprives you of simple survival. Your body feels the hunger and your mind softens, concentration and focus fade. Will you give in to the temptation of failure?”
An excerpt from somewhere deep within The Sushi Prophecies