The Problem With Sushi YouTube

There’s a YouTube short I recently watched: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zvIIuZWmj5I

It got me thinking about the ways that media about sushi makes it seem like this super fancy inaccessible thing. The title of that video is “$100 slice of giant bluefin tuna”. It makes it seem like “woah, isn’t bluefin tuna this fancy, expensive thing?” But here’s the reality: That was at least 3 lbs of bluefin tuna ($33/lb). This amount of bluefin tuna when made into sushi is enough for 6 hungry people to get full. So that’s $17 a person for some really tasty sushi (if you make it yourself). This is definitely outside some peoples’ budgets, but I wouldn’t call this “fancy” or “crazy”. At worst, it's not super cheap as far as home cooking goes.

I feel like there are a lot of YouTube videos on sushi like that video. They make sushi seem like this really difficult thing that requires hard-to-get fish or fancy tools. Sushi is just like any other food. There’s simple versions of it, and there’s fancy versions of it. Here’s a delicious salmon nigiri platter I made for some friends:

The entire cost of what you see here? $8. It tasted delicious.

— Sushi Beginner