record Cal - ifornia roll

OK, so I found out about this article from November 2009 where a record-setting California roll was made by Cal students. OK, that seems funny, and had this happened when I was back in school, I'm pretty sure I would have gone to see it just because it would be funny. Hmmm, but thinking back some more, I didn't eat sushi back then, so I might not have cared after all. Who knows.

Anyway, as I was reading the article, odd thoughts popped in my head. Yeah, I can hear the comments that the peanut gallery is making in response to that.

First off, the article says they made a sushi roll. But then it says they made a California roll. The sushi snob in me doesn't consider California rolls (which I will eat on very rare occasions under very particular circumstances) to be actual sushi since there's no fish or other seafood in them. But, ok, I know that's just a personal quirk of mine.

The article then goes on to say that the students "got their hands fishy". Ummm, and how would they do that making a California roll? The article then continues with a list of the ingredients that were used to make the roll, which include 180 pounds of fish. OK, so they used fish. But that no longer makes it a California roll. A California roll is avocado, cucumber and Krab. There are a lot of variations of this, and in some places, they use actual crab rather than Krab, but then that's specified, and the roll is then given a different name. If actual fish is being used in the roll, then it's just a roll of whatever fish is being used (like a tuna roll, salmon roll, yellowtail roll, etc.). It's not even a California roll with , because I've had that before, and that's a California roll with pieces of fish layered on top. The article doesn't say what kind of fish was used, which I find a bit annoying because I want to know.

So, I don't understand why they called it a California roll. I wondered if it was because the roll was made at Cal, but when they mentioned the previous record-setting attempt in Hawaii, they also called that a California roll. I wonder what ingredients were used in that. Since it was in Hawaii, I wonder if they used Spam instead of Krab.

All these thoughts popping into my head from such a short article.

And yes, many of the comments on the article annoy me. So many people have complete misconceptions about what goes on/went on at Cal because of its history. And even when stuff happens/happened on campus, it's not like every single student participated. But that's a rant for another time. And I also object to the snarky comments about the students APPARENTLY not having anything better to do with their time. Because, you know, a couple hours on a SATURDAY afternoon are going to ruin their lives. Puh-leeze.