The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket by Trevor Corson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
At times fascinating and insightful, other times annoyingly shallow in its presentation of the sushi phenomenon. Much of the science and history of sushi is spot on and a joy to read about, but where Corson falls short is his examination of the realities of sushi culture in Japan today. Understanding that his focus was on the California Sushi Academy, but to title your work “The Story of Sushi” one has to at least examine how the modern Japanese experience it. Corson gives very little accurate insight in this regard. Some of what he describes about sushi in Japan is just plain wrong. If you ever spent anytime in Japan, and you love sushi like I do, some of these falsehoods and characteristics of Japanese sushi need to be addressed.
1. Throughout the book Corson makes it seem as though sushi chefs are some kind of fish bartender/psychologist. The sushi chefs at the California academy yuk it up with customers, tell jokes, and drink with them. In fact, quite a few pages of this book are filled with exchanges of “Kanpai!” between chef and customer. Well that might fly in America where we have come to expect a show (thanks Benihana) and want every restaurant to be a episode of “Cheers”, but in Japan it ain’t happening. Wait-staff, chefs, and anyone working at a restaurant in Japan keep a fair bit of distance between themselves and the customer. Friendly, diligent, and ready to fill the customers needs – sure, but slapping them on the back and downing shots of sake with them, even with regular customers, is a real no-no. This is do to the culture of Japan and especially do to the fact that chefs/wait-staff don’t have to impress for tips in Japan.
The last thing I would want anyone to think after reading this book is that that those kind of wild revelries are what the Japanese sushi experience is all about. Please don’t buy your sushi chef drinks in Japan, period.
2. Corson also seems to imply that most Japanese enjoy visiting their neighborhood sushi chef, some tiny five seat bar where everybody knows your name. That might have held true at an earlier time, but for better or worse, Japan’s modern sushi experience is built upon chain sushi restaurants. Some of these are massive, like Sushi Zanmai, some are regional like Hokkaido’s Toriton, some are chains of only a few locations. You can find them in most cities and they draw a huge following. Usually they are of the kaiten-zushi variety. The chefs at these places are very competent, not some twenty year old woman afraid to gut a fish.(ala Kate from the book). In fact, near Tsukiji fish market some of the best sushi can be found at Sushi Zanmai (and numerous smaller shops close to the inner market area).
Those two points being said, the book does do an excellent job of relating the history of sushi from the early days as a fish preserved for many months in rice to its more modern incarnation in the late 1800‘s as a street stall snack. Corson also delves into the making of soy sauce, dashi, seaweed farming, and rice cultivation, revealing the very rich tapestry of Japanese flavors necessary for sushi. This part of the book is wonderful, it’s a shame that more time could have been spent behind the Japanese sushi bar to give better context to the story.
Because of this omission, a better title might have been “Sushi in America”. That would have given the whole book more credence than the overtly bold “The Story of Sushi”, and would have given it three stars instead of two.