Daniel Handler Wrong About Sushi

Daniel Handler, the man behind Lemony Snicket, makes a pretty stupid (or I should probably say ignorant, because it is based on a false impression) comment about Australia in an online exclusive interview with Jack Black for The Believer:

DH: I’m not afraid of sushi.
JB: There was a time when there was a stigma attached to sushi that the only people who ate sushi were yuppie scum. Do you know what I mean?
DH: Yeah. Like they’ve spent far too much money on fancy, raw fish that secretly nobody likes. I believe that was the attitude.
JB: See, those times are gone. Now everyone agrees sushi is the most delicious food and the Japanese are onto something. It won’t be long before McSushi.
DH: I actually was in Australia not so long ago and sushi seemed to be the primary fast food.
JB: I like Australia. I have a good time there.

There might be more sushi bars in food courts than in San Francisco, where Handler lives (I can't say for sure, I have only spent about thirty-six hours in San Francisco), but there is no way that sushi is the primary fast food in Australia.

Certainly Asian foods have a big presence in Australian culture due to our position on the rim of South East Asia and our large Asian-immigrant population, but traditional burger joints like McDonald's and Hungry Jack's (Burger King by another name) and pizza (Pizza Hut, Domino's) are ubiquitous.

Australia's multi-cultural society means that foods from almost all cultures are represented in your average mall food court -- sushi next to yiros next pizza next to fried chicken next to thai. Handler must have noticed that sushi is more common here than in the US and jumped to a wrong conclusion.