The One I Didn’t Eat

I had a Christmas Eve feast of raw fish.
A student of mine took me out to a sushi restaurant for dinner. It was a good restaurant, and they served an enormous and well-prepared meal of serious sashimi. I’ve been enjoying sushi during my time in Japan, but it’s been fairly tame as far as raw fish goes — mostly salmon and tuna. Last night I took the plunge and braved what seemed like a never ending parade of creatures from the deep.
The dinner was an extreme exercise in will power — I was determined to eat it all. And I did, except for the creature pictured above.
A little background. When I first visited Japan, I was thirteen years old and a very picky eater. I survived mostly on rice during the weeks my family traveled around the county. Although I’ve become much more willing to try new foods, I still don’t venture too far afield when it comes to edibles that once were alive. But last night I wanted to give it my all.
I tried octopus, squid, various types of fish, clams in miso soup, sea urchin and still more that I didn’t get the names of. I even ate the shrimp that was still moving (I’m not kidding) when I put it in my mouth. And when they presented the flash-fried head of that very same moving shrimp, I was going to eat it to. No, I wasn’t. Yes, I was. No, I wasn’t. Yes, I was.
In the end, I just couldn’t. So I left one little critter behind and apologized profusely. Even with that one failure, though, I’m fairly impressed with what I managed to put down last night.