With Simon Rhodes, of the Lobster Pot Fishmongers in Wood Street Food Hall

This weekend I was treated to see the opera Madama Butterfly in the round at the Royal Albert Hall.

The performance and the music was emotionally breathtaking and stunning, reducing me to a blubbering wreck by the end.

In a nutshell, the story revolves around an American sailor who buys a house in Japan which comes complete with a wife, Madama Butterfly.

He leaves for America and returns three years later with another wife... and discovers that he and Madama Butterfly have a son. The sailor and his new wife wish to take the son from Madama Butterfly for a life in America.

The performance climaxes with Butterfly ending her life just as the sailor realises that he is in love with her.

So this week I have decided to talk about sushi, Japan's national dish.

It is the earliest form of fast food and is traditionally eaten with one’s hand. It mainly consists of rice, raw fish, soy sauce, wasabi (a Japanese type of hot horseradish) and pickled vegetables such as ginger.

To become a trained sushi chef takes many years and the art of preparing, cutting and displaying sushi is very skillful.

Having said that, it is great fun to have a go yourself and experiment with different shapes and forms.

The rice is wrapped with a piece of seaweed known as nori, an algae which was originally made from dock pilings, then rolled thin and sun dried.

Today it is mass produced, toasted, packaged and sold in sheets... and a bit tastier, I imagine, than the original.

The fish has to be of the highest quality and very fresh.

In this country the most common fish used are salmon, bass, tuna and mackerel.

Sushi is high in protein, omega 3, vitamins and minerals and very low in fat and so it goes without saying that it is healthy and extremely good for you... as opposed to marrying a two timing travelling american sailor intent on stealing your child!