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The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket
Everything you never knew about sushi—its surprising origins, the colorful lives of its chefs, the bizarre behavior of the creatures that compose it—is revealed in this entertaining documentary account by the author of the highly acclaimed The Secret Life of Lobsters . When a twenty-year-old woman arrives at America's first sushi-chef training academy in Los Angeles, she is unprepared for the challenges knives like swords, instructors like samurai, prejudice against female chefs, demanding Hollywood customers—and that's just the first two weeks. In this richly reported story, journalist Trevor Corson shadows several American sushi novices and a master Japanese chef, taking the reader behind the scenes as the students strive to master the elusive art of cooking without cooking. With the same eye for drama and humor that Corson brings to the exploits of the chefs, he delves into the biology and natural history of the creatures of the sea. He illuminates sushi's beginnings as an Indo-Chinese meal akin to cheese, describes its reinvention in bustling nineteenth-century Tokyo as a cheap fast food, and tells the story of the pioneers who brought it to America. He shows how this unlikely meal is now exploding into the American heartland just as the long-term future of sushi may be unraveling. The Zen of Fish is a compelling tale of human determination as well as a delectable smorgasbord of surprising food science, intrepid reporting, and provocative cultural history.
322 pages, Hardcover
First published May 29, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 390 reviews
January 28, 2025
This was less a story about sushi, and more the story about a group of people studying to become sushi chefs in Los Angeles. The author tries to intertwine little bits of sushi history into each chapter that follows these students, and unfortunately the history gets lost in the book. The title is very misleading and this book was a drag to get through. The only thing that saved it from the one star, is the bits of sushi history. Not recommendable.
September 2, 2021
My main problem with this book is myself: I am a huge fan of sushi, you see. As a kid, I was always afraid of eating sushi. Something in my head said raw = bad. I remember the April day in 2014 when I was walking down the street, and prodded by the smells in the air, a dream perhaps, something beyond my conscious experience, I decided then and there to have sushi. It’s been over 7 years, but I would have to say that it’s probably my favourite food.
I am a fan of these books too – a genre that a Goodreads list calls “Microhistory”. Why would I not want to read a super specific book about how bottle openers came to take over the industry? Or about how slippers slowly worked their way into the hearts of millions of North Americans? Combine that with sushi?! Stop it! I am in! I started hyping myself up (here is the aforementioned problem), telling myself that I want to learn more about sashimi, tamago, inari, all the good delicious stuff! Along the way, I wanted to learn more about the history of Japan and how sushi came to be such a world wide phenomenon. Did this happen? Not really, no. At least not to the extent that I was wanting/expecting.
Here is an image that will give you about 75% of the information contained in this book and save you several hours of smacking yourself on the forehead:
This book is confused. Not confusing, but confused. It doesn’t know what it wants to be – in a bid to capture as much as it can, it attempts to be a memoir about a sushi academy in California and a history of how sushi came to be. It does neither particularly well. Perhaps the author thought that a focus on either subject exclusively would not be interesting, or perhaps this was an idea that was forced on him by the publisher – I won’t dismiss that thought. A history of sushi in Japan would have been a much more useful book, potentially much bigger (if that is the issue), and a much more amusing read. Who knows, if I had known that this was mostly focused on the California Sushi Academy (now closed permanently), maybe I would not have picked it up. I know. I don’t read blurbs, so it’s my fault yet again.
What pushed this book into 2-star territory for me was the random bits of unnecessary crap that the author would toss in. There would be entire paragraphs where people would be yelling kanpai, "bottoms up" in Japanese. It was hammered into me that Japanese sushi chefs do not like women or foreigners (I have no idea how true this is) – once or twice would have been okay, especially if this is the prevailing cultural zeitgeist, but a reminder every few pages? Come on. Same goes with the constant references to an old-school Japanese manga, all about a girl who was constantly told that she will never become a sushi chef because she is a girl. I think the references were meant to create an underdog atmosphere for Kate, the central figure in The Zen of Fish, but they did just the opposite – Kate would spend days crying, being depressed, being unable to eat, feeling discouraged, etc. There would be entire paragraphs and pages dedicated to men talking about being in the sushi industry to flirt with girls – the focus of the book now off sushi and on the chef, who turned to his assistant and said “I just can’t help it! Look at that one with the tits!” Good shit. Really valuable reading material.
It blows my mind that the New York Times quote on the cover of the book reads "Rarely has a Westerner written so knowledgeably, or entertainingly, about the subject....An expert's command." What? You can wake me out of a drunken stupor and I would put up something better, I promise you that.
Skip this one, watch a couple of videos on YouTube. You will save time and money. Trust me.
I am a fan of these books too – a genre that a Goodreads list calls “Microhistory”. Why would I not want to read a super specific book about how bottle openers came to take over the industry? Or about how slippers slowly worked their way into the hearts of millions of North Americans? Combine that with sushi?! Stop it! I am in! I started hyping myself up (here is the aforementioned problem), telling myself that I want to learn more about sashimi, tamago, inari, all the good delicious stuff! Along the way, I wanted to learn more about the history of Japan and how sushi came to be such a world wide phenomenon. Did this happen? Not really, no. At least not to the extent that I was wanting/expecting.
Here is an image that will give you about 75% of the information contained in this book and save you several hours of smacking yourself on the forehead:
This book is confused. Not confusing, but confused. It doesn’t know what it wants to be – in a bid to capture as much as it can, it attempts to be a memoir about a sushi academy in California and a history of how sushi came to be. It does neither particularly well. Perhaps the author thought that a focus on either subject exclusively would not be interesting, or perhaps this was an idea that was forced on him by the publisher – I won’t dismiss that thought. A history of sushi in Japan would have been a much more useful book, potentially much bigger (if that is the issue), and a much more amusing read. Who knows, if I had known that this was mostly focused on the California Sushi Academy (now closed permanently), maybe I would not have picked it up. I know. I don’t read blurbs, so it’s my fault yet again.
What pushed this book into 2-star territory for me was the random bits of unnecessary crap that the author would toss in. There would be entire paragraphs where people would be yelling kanpai, "bottoms up" in Japanese. It was hammered into me that Japanese sushi chefs do not like women or foreigners (I have no idea how true this is) – once or twice would have been okay, especially if this is the prevailing cultural zeitgeist, but a reminder every few pages? Come on. Same goes with the constant references to an old-school Japanese manga, all about a girl who was constantly told that she will never become a sushi chef because she is a girl. I think the references were meant to create an underdog atmosphere for Kate, the central figure in The Zen of Fish, but they did just the opposite – Kate would spend days crying, being depressed, being unable to eat, feeling discouraged, etc. There would be entire paragraphs and pages dedicated to men talking about being in the sushi industry to flirt with girls – the focus of the book now off sushi and on the chef, who turned to his assistant and said “I just can’t help it! Look at that one with the tits!” Good shit. Really valuable reading material.
It blows my mind that the New York Times quote on the cover of the book reads "Rarely has a Westerner written so knowledgeably, or entertainingly, about the subject....An expert's command." What? You can wake me out of a drunken stupor and I would put up something better, I promise you that.
Skip this one, watch a couple of videos on YouTube. You will save time and money. Trust me.
March 7, 2018
Excellent book about sushi and masters who make it. Great information about story of the sushi, toppings on it and other stuff related to sushi and Japanese food.
February 20, 2010
My god, if Corson can write a book then anyone with a middle school education can too. It's unbelievable that the NYTimes and others are actually quoted as favorably reviewing the book on the back cover. "Riveting" says Publisher's Weekly. Really?!
His writing style is truly atrocious. "He sipped his sake and smiled. Kate felt a rush of excitement." End of chapter, as if that was a gripping sentence. This clipped boring and choppy writing, added to his obsessive focus on Kate, one of the students in the sushi academy who is definitely not that interesting, really makes this book painful to read.
It does provide a lot of interesting information on sushi, fish, rice, and eating; but my god you have to weed through a lot of junk to find it. The book is about a sushi academy that Corson observes for months; since his notes generated a lot of detailed observations, they form the bulk of the material for the book, to the detriment of the rest of the material. If you read this, just skip to the substantive chapters, and avoid the restaurant gibberish.
His writing style is truly atrocious. "He sipped his sake and smiled. Kate felt a rush of excitement." End of chapter, as if that was a gripping sentence. This clipped boring and choppy writing, added to his obsessive focus on Kate, one of the students in the sushi academy who is definitely not that interesting, really makes this book painful to read.
It does provide a lot of interesting information on sushi, fish, rice, and eating; but my god you have to weed through a lot of junk to find it. The book is about a sushi academy that Corson observes for months; since his notes generated a lot of detailed observations, they form the bulk of the material for the book, to the detriment of the rest of the material. If you read this, just skip to the substantive chapters, and avoid the restaurant gibberish.
September 27, 2011
Forgive me if this “review” seems an agglomeration of tidbits, but I really enjoy little facts and pieces of information, and this book was riddled with them.
I don’t like fish and frankly the idea of eating it raw, no matter how trendy or gussied up it might be, roils my stomach. Be that as it may, this is a fascinating story, following the ascent (descent?) from a despised, lower class food to one prized by the elite. (Lobster made a similar journey: it was once banned as food for prisoners in jail because it was considered so unseemly and dirty.) The story follows Kate at the California Sushi Academy where, a total neophyte, she has decided to learn how to make Sushi from the masters. It has become less Japanese than international and some of the best chefs are from outside Japan. But, I mean how hard can it be to roll up some raw tuna around rice. Surprise, surprise.
Interestingly, mold is key to Sushi rice and the particular mold strains are guarded in bank vaults or secret caves. The mold is added to rice and eats it with such tremendous speed that if not properly controlled, the heat generated would overheat the incubator. The moldy rice is then mixed with soybeans along with yeast, bacteria and salt. The mush is shoveled into tubs where it sits for months where the digestive enzymes shorten time from 78 million years to seconds and generate amino acids. It’s the enzymes that we want to create glutamate important to human growth, brain development, etc. (Bear with me, I listened to this book on audio and am trying to recreate it from memory.) Anyway, to make a long, but interesting story short, the result is Miso (for more details see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miso). It’s very nutritious and as a paste is used in soups and other dishes including, guess what, sushi. The brown liquid at the edges of the Miso is soy sauce.
Msg, monosodium glutamate, is heralded as one of the miracles of this process and an important ingredient in flavoring. Usually associated with Japanese and Chinese food, it’s ubiquitous ands manufactured by the ton, added to meats, chips, fast food, soups , and many other things (it’s hidden under the name hydrolyzed vegetable protein.)
Western scientists had always assumed that the human tongue can taste only four flavors: sweet, bitter, sour, and salty. Asian scientists insisted there was another they called “tastiness” triggered by amino acids and was represented by the amino acid glutamate (msg) . Recently scientists at UC San Diego have found specific receptors for this flavor.
Fresh water fish can be dangerous when used raw for sushi as it is more likely to contain parasites that cause tapeworm. Salmon and trout, in particular as notorious, and the only way to kill the parasites is by freezing at -31 F for 18 hours or for a week at 0 F. Farmed salmon is not as dangerous filled as it is with PCBs and antibiotics. (Farmed salmon has 5 times the levels of PCB as wild salmon. It takes 3 lbs of ground up fish meal to produce 1 lb of salmon. In the wild they eat krill which gives the flesh its pink color - much like flamingoes.) The more fatty farmed salmon has become much more popular with diners making chefs happy since it is much cheaper.
Tuna pose their own special problems, in particular the Bluefin, largest of all the tuna and unusual in that it is warm-blooded and therefore has to age longer, much like terrestrial animals before they are eaten. Another issue is mercury. Since underwater volcanoes and coal-fired energy plants emit mercury which accumulates in the top of the food chain (and Bluefin tuna which often reach 1,500 lbs. are a top predator) pregnant women are told not to eat Bluefin and everyone else is told no more than once-a-week for any kind of tuna. Some of the techniques to factory farm tuna are rather spectacular (I'll resist the temptation to reveal a spoiler but will only say they involve mackerel) and perhaps they might lessen the danger of eating mercury. Another reason to avoid fish.
The evolution of sushi is quite a story in itself, moving from rice being used to preserve fish (and smelling like the “vomit of a drunkard” and being thrown out, to a situation where the rice is more important than the fish. Sushi chefs apprentice themselves for years to learn the secrets of good sushi rice. (I have some Norwegian in my genes, but there is no way you will ever get lutefisk** - literally lye fish - past my nose.)
A major role of the sushi chef is to scope out the customers and adjust the servings and consistency and appearance to the particular customer's taste. I'll avoid a spoiler here and not reveal why it is that Americans will probably never get an authentic sushi; the kind they are served would be rejected as inedible by most Japanese.
I could go on and on. Fascinating book.
** Here’s what Garrison Keillor has to say about it:”Every Advent we entered the purgatory of lutefisk, a repulsive gelatinous fishlike dish that tasted of soap and gave off an odor that would gag a goat. We did this in honor of Norwegian ancestors, much as if survivors of a famine might celebrate their deliverance by feasting on elm bark. I always felt the cold creeps as Advent approached, knowing that this dread delicacy would be put before me and I'd be told, "Just have a little." Eating a little was like vomiting a little, just as bad as a lot.”
I don’t like fish and frankly the idea of eating it raw, no matter how trendy or gussied up it might be, roils my stomach. Be that as it may, this is a fascinating story, following the ascent (descent?) from a despised, lower class food to one prized by the elite. (Lobster made a similar journey: it was once banned as food for prisoners in jail because it was considered so unseemly and dirty.) The story follows Kate at the California Sushi Academy where, a total neophyte, she has decided to learn how to make Sushi from the masters. It has become less Japanese than international and some of the best chefs are from outside Japan. But, I mean how hard can it be to roll up some raw tuna around rice. Surprise, surprise.
Interestingly, mold is key to Sushi rice and the particular mold strains are guarded in bank vaults or secret caves. The mold is added to rice and eats it with such tremendous speed that if not properly controlled, the heat generated would overheat the incubator. The moldy rice is then mixed with soybeans along with yeast, bacteria and salt. The mush is shoveled into tubs where it sits for months where the digestive enzymes shorten time from 78 million years to seconds and generate amino acids. It’s the enzymes that we want to create glutamate important to human growth, brain development, etc. (Bear with me, I listened to this book on audio and am trying to recreate it from memory.) Anyway, to make a long, but interesting story short, the result is Miso (for more details see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miso). It’s very nutritious and as a paste is used in soups and other dishes including, guess what, sushi. The brown liquid at the edges of the Miso is soy sauce.
Msg, monosodium glutamate, is heralded as one of the miracles of this process and an important ingredient in flavoring. Usually associated with Japanese and Chinese food, it’s ubiquitous ands manufactured by the ton, added to meats, chips, fast food, soups , and many other things (it’s hidden under the name hydrolyzed vegetable protein.)
Western scientists had always assumed that the human tongue can taste only four flavors: sweet, bitter, sour, and salty. Asian scientists insisted there was another they called “tastiness” triggered by amino acids and was represented by the amino acid glutamate (msg) . Recently scientists at UC San Diego have found specific receptors for this flavor.
Fresh water fish can be dangerous when used raw for sushi as it is more likely to contain parasites that cause tapeworm. Salmon and trout, in particular as notorious, and the only way to kill the parasites is by freezing at -31 F for 18 hours or for a week at 0 F. Farmed salmon is not as dangerous filled as it is with PCBs and antibiotics. (Farmed salmon has 5 times the levels of PCB as wild salmon. It takes 3 lbs of ground up fish meal to produce 1 lb of salmon. In the wild they eat krill which gives the flesh its pink color - much like flamingoes.) The more fatty farmed salmon has become much more popular with diners making chefs happy since it is much cheaper.
Tuna pose their own special problems, in particular the Bluefin, largest of all the tuna and unusual in that it is warm-blooded and therefore has to age longer, much like terrestrial animals before they are eaten. Another issue is mercury. Since underwater volcanoes and coal-fired energy plants emit mercury which accumulates in the top of the food chain (and Bluefin tuna which often reach 1,500 lbs. are a top predator) pregnant women are told not to eat Bluefin and everyone else is told no more than once-a-week for any kind of tuna. Some of the techniques to factory farm tuna are rather spectacular (I'll resist the temptation to reveal a spoiler but will only say they involve mackerel) and perhaps they might lessen the danger of eating mercury. Another reason to avoid fish.
The evolution of sushi is quite a story in itself, moving from rice being used to preserve fish (and smelling like the “vomit of a drunkard” and being thrown out, to a situation where the rice is more important than the fish. Sushi chefs apprentice themselves for years to learn the secrets of good sushi rice. (I have some Norwegian in my genes, but there is no way you will ever get lutefisk** - literally lye fish - past my nose.)
A major role of the sushi chef is to scope out the customers and adjust the servings and consistency and appearance to the particular customer's taste. I'll avoid a spoiler here and not reveal why it is that Americans will probably never get an authentic sushi; the kind they are served would be rejected as inedible by most Japanese.
I could go on and on. Fascinating book.
** Here’s what Garrison Keillor has to say about it:”Every Advent we entered the purgatory of lutefisk, a repulsive gelatinous fishlike dish that tasted of soap and gave off an odor that would gag a goat. We did this in honor of Norwegian ancestors, much as if survivors of a famine might celebrate their deliverance by feasting on elm bark. I always felt the cold creeps as Advent approached, knowing that this dread delicacy would be put before me and I'd be told, "Just have a little." Eating a little was like vomiting a little, just as bad as a lot.”
September 8, 2009
I feel a little bad about giving only two stars to a book which I quite enjoyed reading, but even as I was enjoying it I was getting frustrated with the lack of there there.
There are two entwined parts of this book: a documentary of a class of sushi chefs and a history/natural history of sushi. The structure followed a class structure, with a chapter discussing a different area of sushi -- rice, nori, various types of fish, and so on -- bracketed by scenes from the actual classroom of the students dealing with preparing these types of sushi. Interspersed with these were documentary-only short chapters following exciting moments for the class or the restaurant out of which the class was based, such as a catering job or a lunch rush at the student counter. There were several characters in the documentary: three students, one teacher, one former student and current chef, and the owner; of all of them, only one student, Kate, really seemed to have a narrative, and it felt strongly unresolved at the end of the book, especially given the precarious career opportunities described by the epilogue. A fiction book about any (or all) of these characters could easily have been fascinating, but the writer of this book didn't seem interested in drawing in any personal connections.
The history/natural history sections were more satisfying. There were Japanese food history lessons, American commerce history lessons, biology lessons on muscle types and bacteria and fermentation, and natural history lessons on the life cycles of the various fishes. All of these were brief and fascinating. An angle which I found particularly interesting was the emphasis on how understanding of bacteria and parasites and the ways to control this in food production had shaped and were still shaping sushi devlopement. (There were also occasional recaps of issues of the Sushi Chef Kirara's Job manga, made to sound quite boring.)
And there was something which, perhaps, got under my skin more than it should have as an American who eats a lot of sushi. There was a strong message in this book which I am summarizing as: American people don't understand sushi, and Japanese people can't be bothered to teach them; American people spend too much money on bad sushi and Japanese people spend too much money on good sushi; in short, American = ignorant and Japanese = snobby. Ironically, several of the Japanese history lessons focus on the development of sushi as a fast, mass-produced food, yet many of the American history lessons decry the same trend on the American side of the Pacific. A number of asides discussed the "correct" way to eat sushi and the heart-breaking ways in which Americans kept getting it wrong, yet all of the success stories in the book were of chefs who had blended Japanese and American cooking traditions together. There even one digression into the ways in which Japanese sushi is changing so that some of the most purely traditional sushi is being made in America!
Another thing which got under my skin was the way in which gender discrimination was discussed. Gender discrimination is shown as a big problem for female sushi chefs, and the author clearly thinks that this is both stupid -- some of the silly "reasons" for preventing women from working as sushi chefs are held up for ridicule -- and incomprehensible -- there's description but no real empathy or outrage. The former student who was part of the documentary, Fie, faces a lot of fetishization as a beautiful woman working as a sushi chef; the owner of the restaurant where she works jokes about staring at female customers' breasts; there's no connection drawn. The current student, Kate, is turned down over and over for jobs, sometimes explicitly because she's a woman (just like the protagonist of Sushi Chef Kirara's Job) which clearly makes her furious, but there's no tonal shift in the narrative at all. And here's Kate's success story: "Kate grew serious. 'I had a really good time with you guys, especially being one of two girls.' In the end, Kate did feel like one of the guys, and it was clear that her classmates had accepted her." (p 303)
So: definitely an interesting book, but not one I particularly recommend unless you're planning to skim for the well-written natural history.
There are two entwined parts of this book: a documentary of a class of sushi chefs and a history/natural history of sushi. The structure followed a class structure, with a chapter discussing a different area of sushi -- rice, nori, various types of fish, and so on -- bracketed by scenes from the actual classroom of the students dealing with preparing these types of sushi. Interspersed with these were documentary-only short chapters following exciting moments for the class or the restaurant out of which the class was based, such as a catering job or a lunch rush at the student counter. There were several characters in the documentary: three students, one teacher, one former student and current chef, and the owner; of all of them, only one student, Kate, really seemed to have a narrative, and it felt strongly unresolved at the end of the book, especially given the precarious career opportunities described by the epilogue. A fiction book about any (or all) of these characters could easily have been fascinating, but the writer of this book didn't seem interested in drawing in any personal connections.
The history/natural history sections were more satisfying. There were Japanese food history lessons, American commerce history lessons, biology lessons on muscle types and bacteria and fermentation, and natural history lessons on the life cycles of the various fishes. All of these were brief and fascinating. An angle which I found particularly interesting was the emphasis on how understanding of bacteria and parasites and the ways to control this in food production had shaped and were still shaping sushi devlopement. (There were also occasional recaps of issues of the Sushi Chef Kirara's Job manga, made to sound quite boring.)
And there was something which, perhaps, got under my skin more than it should have as an American who eats a lot of sushi. There was a strong message in this book which I am summarizing as: American people don't understand sushi, and Japanese people can't be bothered to teach them; American people spend too much money on bad sushi and Japanese people spend too much money on good sushi; in short, American = ignorant and Japanese = snobby. Ironically, several of the Japanese history lessons focus on the development of sushi as a fast, mass-produced food, yet many of the American history lessons decry the same trend on the American side of the Pacific. A number of asides discussed the "correct" way to eat sushi and the heart-breaking ways in which Americans kept getting it wrong, yet all of the success stories in the book were of chefs who had blended Japanese and American cooking traditions together. There even one digression into the ways in which Japanese sushi is changing so that some of the most purely traditional sushi is being made in America!
Another thing which got under my skin was the way in which gender discrimination was discussed. Gender discrimination is shown as a big problem for female sushi chefs, and the author clearly thinks that this is both stupid -- some of the silly "reasons" for preventing women from working as sushi chefs are held up for ridicule -- and incomprehensible -- there's description but no real empathy or outrage. The former student who was part of the documentary, Fie, faces a lot of fetishization as a beautiful woman working as a sushi chef; the owner of the restaurant where she works jokes about staring at female customers' breasts; there's no connection drawn. The current student, Kate, is turned down over and over for jobs, sometimes explicitly because she's a woman (just like the protagonist of Sushi Chef Kirara's Job) which clearly makes her furious, but there's no tonal shift in the narrative at all. And here's Kate's success story: "Kate grew serious. 'I had a really good time with you guys, especially being one of two girls.' In the end, Kate did feel like one of the guys, and it was clear that her classmates had accepted her." (p 303)
So: definitely an interesting book, but not one I particularly recommend unless you're planning to skim for the well-written natural history.
September 10, 2016
If I had to give a 6 word review for this, it would be "good with fish, bad with people." This book talks about sushi, from its origins to how it's evolved over time. If you're a sushi aficionado, this is a great resource. It will help turn you into a mildly annoying sushi snob to a supremely annoying sushi know-it-all. You know, if that's what you're into. It will probably also make you a more savvy sushi-eater. You'll learn which fish are better, and why, and how to get good service from traditional Japanese sushi chefs (hint: don't be female, don't be American.) I had no idea of the concept of omakase, and wished that there were something like a traditional Japanese sushi bar in America. (Except maybe not so sexist and with food I like better, like something Mediterranean.)
Let me start with what Corson does well. Corson does fish well. I loved, LOVED his sections that dealt with the history of how sushi was made. I loved learning about how fish breaks down, about the organic chemistry behind the flavor profiles of the different types of fish. I loved learning why the original sushi was buried in jars for a year, and why they stopped doing that. I found the sociocultural history of sushi equally interesting--why do we associate sushi with Japan and not Korea (its country of origin?) This book will tell you all kinds of great facts. If I cut and pasted this book so that it only included the sections about the fish itself, I would have given it four or five stars.
Corson, unfortunately, interspaced his sections on sushi with chapters following a group of students at a sushi school in Los Angeles. I say unfortunately, because these sections simply did not work for me. Every time I went from a section about the habits of tai, or the amino acid breakdown in mackerel, I loved this book. Every time he went back to talking about Toshi, Takumi, Zoran, Marcos and Kate, I wanted to stop reading. These were so badly written, I felt like I was reading dialog from something written for not-particularly-discerning children.
My dislike of the human-centric sections bothered me, because I couldn't put my finger on what Corson was doing wrong. I came up with a few things. First of all, he uses far too many exclamation points. It is certainly possible that this will not bother other readers, but when I read an exclamation point, I read that dialog as a shout. Too many, and it makes me feel that the characters are bad voice actors in a low-grade anime. I also felt that some of the descriptions of how to make sushi were muddy. I read the description of how to form rice into nigiri four or five times, and each time it was about as comprehensible as an audiobook on origami. If a reader can't understand it, why include it at all? Either write it clearer, include diagrams, or if it can't be described, omit it.
Secondly, the dialog felt stilted. Since the book has a dense and impressive bibliography, and since the fish-centric research was so spot-on, I will not accuse Corson of not exercising the same diligence when recounting dialog. These are, presumably, real people who really did say these things. Maybe it was too many words like "blurted", "snapped", "bellowed", "laughed", "replied", answered, and "retorted" instead of "said." I think, primarily, it was just a poor choice of which dialog to include in the book.
Which brings me to the main problem with the human-centric sections: choice and treatment of characters. There are a lot of scenes and dialog with the instructors and the students, but they're scattered, like the clippings left over from film footage after a few other producers have already taken the best bits. Corson frequently tells us Kate thought x. Or Zoron thought y, which just served to make the prose more scattered, and made me feel even less of a connection to them. I didn't get to know the people, and what I did get to know, I didn't care for. The sushi school he wrote about had at least a dozen students, but Corson chose to focus on two and a half: Marcos, Kate, and Fie. Marcos is the teenage 'bro' who is described as the sort of man who wears a baseball cap backwards. Fie is the drop-dead gorgeous Danish actress and model, who serves as the half-character. The main character is Kate. Kate's a 20-year-old California girl who decided to study sushi because she loved it and it had helped her put weight back on after a period of illness, so she credits sushi with saving her life.
I don't know anything about the real Kate. Maybe she's a charming and complex woman with a keen intellect and deep work ethic. In this book, she came off as dumb and useless. Maybe Corson was going for the sports-movie story? You know, where the kid with asthma, the black guy, the Jew and all the other misfits somehow pull together and create a winning team by the end of the movie, through the coaching of the iconoclast genius? It didn't work for me. Maybe I've watched too many Top Chef episodes, because my opinion is that cooking is for tough, hungry, driven young people who thrive under pressure. Kate can't keep her knives from rusting, she can't keep her uniform clean, and she freaks out when she's asked to gut a fish. I understand the thrill of watching unlikely misfits pull together, but if you're squeamish about touching a dead fish when you've SIGNED UP FOR SUSHI SCHOOL you are completely unqualified and should quit and do something easier.
Why did Corson choose this person to focus on? Did it have something to do with her "pretty brown hair", the way she wrote "love hearts" above her name, or the way her "pink thong showed above her jeans when she leaned over"? This book is about sushi, but it's also the story of these sushi students. When Kate not only graduated, but went out in the world and found that most sushi chefs out there weren't nearly her equal in terms of technique and cleanliness, it did nothing to instill in me a respect for the art of sushi making. That sushi chefs in Japan study for five years before being allowed to touch fish didn't counterbalance this disdain, it just made me wonder if maybe Japanese sushi instructors are really bad teachers. You can learn to be a doctor in five years. Can it really take that long to learn to cut apart stuff that's already dead?
I love science. I love biology, I love cooking, and I love Japan. I don't like sushi, but that's mostly because I don't like its smell, taste, texture or temperature. This is a great book for anyone who likes any of those things. Want to know about the life cycle of eels? Great book. Want to know why salmon is a bad choice for sashimi? Great book. Want to know why sushi is sweeter in Kyoto than Tokyo? Great book. For most people, I don't even think the human-centric sections of this book will be enough to ruin it for you, because most people don't obsess over good characters, prose, and dialog as I do. In fact, I liked this book enough that I think I'll look for his other book about lobsters--just as long as there aren't any people in it.
Let me start with what Corson does well. Corson does fish well. I loved, LOVED his sections that dealt with the history of how sushi was made. I loved learning about how fish breaks down, about the organic chemistry behind the flavor profiles of the different types of fish. I loved learning why the original sushi was buried in jars for a year, and why they stopped doing that. I found the sociocultural history of sushi equally interesting--why do we associate sushi with Japan and not Korea (its country of origin?) This book will tell you all kinds of great facts. If I cut and pasted this book so that it only included the sections about the fish itself, I would have given it four or five stars.
Corson, unfortunately, interspaced his sections on sushi with chapters following a group of students at a sushi school in Los Angeles. I say unfortunately, because these sections simply did not work for me. Every time I went from a section about the habits of tai, or the amino acid breakdown in mackerel, I loved this book. Every time he went back to talking about Toshi, Takumi, Zoran, Marcos and Kate, I wanted to stop reading. These were so badly written, I felt like I was reading dialog from something written for not-particularly-discerning children.
My dislike of the human-centric sections bothered me, because I couldn't put my finger on what Corson was doing wrong. I came up with a few things. First of all, he uses far too many exclamation points. It is certainly possible that this will not bother other readers, but when I read an exclamation point, I read that dialog as a shout. Too many, and it makes me feel that the characters are bad voice actors in a low-grade anime. I also felt that some of the descriptions of how to make sushi were muddy. I read the description of how to form rice into nigiri four or five times, and each time it was about as comprehensible as an audiobook on origami. If a reader can't understand it, why include it at all? Either write it clearer, include diagrams, or if it can't be described, omit it.
Secondly, the dialog felt stilted. Since the book has a dense and impressive bibliography, and since the fish-centric research was so spot-on, I will not accuse Corson of not exercising the same diligence when recounting dialog. These are, presumably, real people who really did say these things. Maybe it was too many words like "blurted", "snapped", "bellowed", "laughed", "replied", answered, and "retorted" instead of "said." I think, primarily, it was just a poor choice of which dialog to include in the book.
Which brings me to the main problem with the human-centric sections: choice and treatment of characters. There are a lot of scenes and dialog with the instructors and the students, but they're scattered, like the clippings left over from film footage after a few other producers have already taken the best bits. Corson frequently tells us Kate thought x. Or Zoron thought y, which just served to make the prose more scattered, and made me feel even less of a connection to them. I didn't get to know the people, and what I did get to know, I didn't care for. The sushi school he wrote about had at least a dozen students, but Corson chose to focus on two and a half: Marcos, Kate, and Fie. Marcos is the teenage 'bro' who is described as the sort of man who wears a baseball cap backwards. Fie is the drop-dead gorgeous Danish actress and model, who serves as the half-character. The main character is Kate. Kate's a 20-year-old California girl who decided to study sushi because she loved it and it had helped her put weight back on after a period of illness, so she credits sushi with saving her life.
I don't know anything about the real Kate. Maybe she's a charming and complex woman with a keen intellect and deep work ethic. In this book, she came off as dumb and useless. Maybe Corson was going for the sports-movie story? You know, where the kid with asthma, the black guy, the Jew and all the other misfits somehow pull together and create a winning team by the end of the movie, through the coaching of the iconoclast genius? It didn't work for me. Maybe I've watched too many Top Chef episodes, because my opinion is that cooking is for tough, hungry, driven young people who thrive under pressure. Kate can't keep her knives from rusting, she can't keep her uniform clean, and she freaks out when she's asked to gut a fish. I understand the thrill of watching unlikely misfits pull together, but if you're squeamish about touching a dead fish when you've SIGNED UP FOR SUSHI SCHOOL you are completely unqualified and should quit and do something easier.
Why did Corson choose this person to focus on? Did it have something to do with her "pretty brown hair", the way she wrote "love hearts" above her name, or the way her "pink thong showed above her jeans when she leaned over"? This book is about sushi, but it's also the story of these sushi students. When Kate not only graduated, but went out in the world and found that most sushi chefs out there weren't nearly her equal in terms of technique and cleanliness, it did nothing to instill in me a respect for the art of sushi making. That sushi chefs in Japan study for five years before being allowed to touch fish didn't counterbalance this disdain, it just made me wonder if maybe Japanese sushi instructors are really bad teachers. You can learn to be a doctor in five years. Can it really take that long to learn to cut apart stuff that's already dead?
I love science. I love biology, I love cooking, and I love Japan. I don't like sushi, but that's mostly because I don't like its smell, taste, texture or temperature. This is a great book for anyone who likes any of those things. Want to know about the life cycle of eels? Great book. Want to know why salmon is a bad choice for sashimi? Great book. Want to know why sushi is sweeter in Kyoto than Tokyo? Great book. For most people, I don't even think the human-centric sections of this book will be enough to ruin it for you, because most people don't obsess over good characters, prose, and dialog as I do. In fact, I liked this book enough that I think I'll look for his other book about lobsters--just as long as there aren't any people in it.
April 6, 2019
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 due to the culture of Japan and especially due 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.(a la 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 to whole book more credence than the overtly bold “The Story of Sushi”, and would have given it three stars instead of two.
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 due to the culture of Japan and especially due 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.(a la 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 to whole book more credence than the overtly bold “The Story of Sushi”, and would have given it three stars instead of two.
February 20, 2010
The Zen of Fish had potential and I'd probably have given it three or maybe even four stars if Trevor Corson hadn't made the terrible decision to talk to me as if I was in second grade. Particularly in passages where he wrote about scientific processes (e.g. the amino acids that give fish their flavor and the processes that create them) he used the kind of language you'd expect from a tour guide giving a tour to class of small children. I am sorry, but I don't think any second graders are likely to be reading this book. Please, Mr. Corson, learn to treat your readers with some respect. In fact, I've read the book Mr. Corson references as his primary source for the scientific information. It was pretty dry and technical in places, but definitely accessible. It doesn't take baby-talk to make science intelligible!
Aside from his failure with the science, Mr. Corson made another mis-step. It reads as though he developed a crush on Kate, the sushi student who is the primary focus of the story. All of a sudden half way through the book he suddenly starts talking way too much about her lovely hair in a way that is totally irrelevant and distracting.
Too bad that a potentially fascinating topic was so abused.
Aside from his failure with the science, Mr. Corson made another mis-step. It reads as though he developed a crush on Kate, the sushi student who is the primary focus of the story. All of a sudden half way through the book he suddenly starts talking way too much about her lovely hair in a way that is totally irrelevant and distracting.
Too bad that a potentially fascinating topic was so abused.
June 19, 2018
Wow, this is a wealth of information.
Basically, it toggles between two things: first, following one class of the California Sushi Academy— focusing on three students in particular: Kate (a Midwestern girl), Takumi (a shy former Japanese pop star), and Marcos (a 17yo guy who thinks making sushi will get him laid); and second, a history of sushi. It was very skillfully done.
Somehow, even though the author was shadowing the class for 3 months (and also appears to jump in their cars and follow them to lunch, because some conversations happen in those scenarios) the author is almost entirely absent from the story. Yet even in his absence, we don’t lack for interesting people. Or interesting facts. Or sushi-making tips (I was inspired to make my own after reading this, and thanks to the explanations in the book, it went astonishingly smoothly).
————--—SUSHI HISTORY—————
— sushi became affordable in 1600s when it was sold by food stands for workers rebuilding Edo after earthquake
— Sushi began as follows. To preserve fish in the first millenium A.D., people would cover the fish with rice (which would break down into sugar through fermentation, which kills bacteria). Then months later, they’d scrape the nasty smelly rice off and eat the fish (“aged sushi”). But as time went on, and class systems became more robust (and travel was more efficient), wealthy people began to eat the fish earlier and earlier in the fermentation phase, until they were eating it when the fish was still quite fresh and the rice was still good to eat. They realized the rice tasted good, a little vinegary, and began to eat it with the fish. They called this “ready raw sushi.” Eventually, rice vinegar was invented, and they realized they could just add rice vinegar to fresh rice and get the same taste. Enter sushi as we know it.
————RANDOM SUSHI FACTS————
— sushi-rolling bamboo mats look like window blinds because that’s what were originally used
— “nigiri” means to squeeze (the rectangle of rice together)
— rice on the outside, seaweed (nori) on the inside is purely an American style. It’s called an “inside out” roll. Traditional sushi has nori on the outside, rice inside.
— cucumber maki is called kappa maki after “kappas” which are mythological creatures that live in ponds and eat children (you may recognize them from the 3rd Harry Potter book). The only thing they love more than eating children is eating cucumber.
— “nobody” who is authentically Japanese drinks sake with their sushi (since sake is made from rice, it clashes with sushi).
— "Raw" fish in sushi isn't actually raw-- or at least, it’s not totally unprepared. Traditionally, all of it should either be blanched or else marinated overnight in salt and vinegar (both are employed to make the fish last longer and inhibit bacteria grwoth). Salmon, in particular, should ALWAYS be frozen. Nearly all salmon carry tapeworm or anisakis parasites.
— traditionally, there are two main kinds of sushi: kappa (cucumber) maki and tuna maki. They’re called “thin rolls”-- they’re simple, only one ingredient.
So there, everyone who, when I say “I love sushi,” interject with “Isn't vegetarian sushi an oxymoron?"
No, you're an oxymoron. See, one of the two traditional kinds of sushi is vegetarian.
And while we’re on the subject: the term sushi "refers not to fish, but to rice-- rice seasoned with rice vinegar, sugar, and salt. Any food made with this seasoned rice can be called sushi, whether it involves fish or not."
————RANDOM OTHER FACTS————
— that fishy smell, the “smell of the ocean,” comes from algae (which fish eat). The compounds that give it that smell are bromophenols
— Mackeral, in Japanese, is referred to as “hikari mono”-- “shiny-skinned fish.” The phrase is used today to describe women who wear glitter and shiny clothes. It’s the same reason calling someone a “mackeral” in England meant they were a dandy, a man who dresses in a flashy way. In France, calling someone a mackeral meant they were a pimp for similar reasons (which is where we get the term “mack daddy” by the way. I know you want to whip out that fun fact every day).
— Freshwater eels might be the weirdest fucking animals. Ever.
First, nobody had any idea how they bred. They didn’t even realize “glass eels” (these tiny, transparent eels) are actually the same species, just baby freshwater eels. It wasn’t until 1922 that it was discovered that ALL FRESHWATER EELS COME FROM THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE. (Okay, all freshwater eels in the Western Hemisphere. The freshwater eels in the Eastern Hemisphere come from this one particular place in the Philippine Sea). They then swim through the ocean and end up either in Europe or in North America. The eel you find in German rivers came from the EXACT same place as the eel you find in Iowa. How fucking wild is that?
Then after living their life in freshwater rivers, they swim back out to sea (presumably to the Bermuda Triangle, though nobody’s seen eels spawn), spawn, and die. Like the reverse of salmon, who are born in rivers, live in the ocean, and return to the river. ...But like, salmon come from lots of different rivers, whereas all eels come from the Bermuda Triangle.
God is definitely fucking with us.
Basically, it toggles between two things: first, following one class of the California Sushi Academy— focusing on three students in particular: Kate (a Midwestern girl), Takumi (a shy former Japanese pop star), and Marcos (a 17yo guy who thinks making sushi will get him laid); and second, a history of sushi. It was very skillfully done.
Somehow, even though the author was shadowing the class for 3 months (and also appears to jump in their cars and follow them to lunch, because some conversations happen in those scenarios) the author is almost entirely absent from the story. Yet even in his absence, we don’t lack for interesting people. Or interesting facts. Or sushi-making tips (I was inspired to make my own after reading this, and thanks to the explanations in the book, it went astonishingly smoothly).
————--—SUSHI HISTORY—————
— sushi became affordable in 1600s when it was sold by food stands for workers rebuilding Edo after earthquake
— Sushi began as follows. To preserve fish in the first millenium A.D., people would cover the fish with rice (which would break down into sugar through fermentation, which kills bacteria). Then months later, they’d scrape the nasty smelly rice off and eat the fish (“aged sushi”). But as time went on, and class systems became more robust (and travel was more efficient), wealthy people began to eat the fish earlier and earlier in the fermentation phase, until they were eating it when the fish was still quite fresh and the rice was still good to eat. They realized the rice tasted good, a little vinegary, and began to eat it with the fish. They called this “ready raw sushi.” Eventually, rice vinegar was invented, and they realized they could just add rice vinegar to fresh rice and get the same taste. Enter sushi as we know it.
————RANDOM SUSHI FACTS————
— sushi-rolling bamboo mats look like window blinds because that’s what were originally used
— “nigiri” means to squeeze (the rectangle of rice together)
— rice on the outside, seaweed (nori) on the inside is purely an American style. It’s called an “inside out” roll. Traditional sushi has nori on the outside, rice inside.
— cucumber maki is called kappa maki after “kappas” which are mythological creatures that live in ponds and eat children (you may recognize them from the 3rd Harry Potter book). The only thing they love more than eating children is eating cucumber.
— “nobody” who is authentically Japanese drinks sake with their sushi (since sake is made from rice, it clashes with sushi).
— "Raw" fish in sushi isn't actually raw-- or at least, it’s not totally unprepared. Traditionally, all of it should either be blanched or else marinated overnight in salt and vinegar (both are employed to make the fish last longer and inhibit bacteria grwoth). Salmon, in particular, should ALWAYS be frozen. Nearly all salmon carry tapeworm or anisakis parasites.
— traditionally, there are two main kinds of sushi: kappa (cucumber) maki and tuna maki. They’re called “thin rolls”-- they’re simple, only one ingredient.
So there, everyone who, when I say “I love sushi,” interject with “Isn't vegetarian sushi an oxymoron?"
No, you're an oxymoron. See, one of the two traditional kinds of sushi is vegetarian.
And while we’re on the subject: the term sushi "refers not to fish, but to rice-- rice seasoned with rice vinegar, sugar, and salt. Any food made with this seasoned rice can be called sushi, whether it involves fish or not."
————RANDOM OTHER FACTS————
— that fishy smell, the “smell of the ocean,” comes from algae (which fish eat). The compounds that give it that smell are bromophenols
— Mackeral, in Japanese, is referred to as “hikari mono”-- “shiny-skinned fish.” The phrase is used today to describe women who wear glitter and shiny clothes. It’s the same reason calling someone a “mackeral” in England meant they were a dandy, a man who dresses in a flashy way. In France, calling someone a mackeral meant they were a pimp for similar reasons (which is where we get the term “mack daddy” by the way. I know you want to whip out that fun fact every day).
— Freshwater eels might be the weirdest fucking animals. Ever.
First, nobody had any idea how they bred. They didn’t even realize “glass eels” (these tiny, transparent eels) are actually the same species, just baby freshwater eels. It wasn’t until 1922 that it was discovered that ALL FRESHWATER EELS COME FROM THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE. (Okay, all freshwater eels in the Western Hemisphere. The freshwater eels in the Eastern Hemisphere come from this one particular place in the Philippine Sea). They then swim through the ocean and end up either in Europe or in North America. The eel you find in German rivers came from the EXACT same place as the eel you find in Iowa. How fucking wild is that?
Then after living their life in freshwater rivers, they swim back out to sea (presumably to the Bermuda Triangle, though nobody’s seen eels spawn), spawn, and die. Like the reverse of salmon, who are born in rivers, live in the ocean, and return to the river. ...But like, salmon come from lots of different rivers, whereas all eels come from the Bermuda Triangle.
God is definitely fucking with us.
November 1, 2011
This book was later republished as The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice. Neither is an accurate representation of the actual content of the book. Expecting a nice history of sushi? You won't really get it. Instead, it's mostly about one particular class of an American sushi school that trains sushi chefs in three months. There are scattered bits of historical information about sushi, and practical information about fish in general, but they're drowned out by the school storyline. This wouldn't have been so bad if it were entirely focused on the actually interesting students. Takumi, say, a former Japanese pop idol turned chef who has already mastered Italian cooking. Or the Danish ex-supermodel. Or the (never named) pregnant woman who is unable to actually eat what she makes (she spits it out). Or anybody, really, except Kate. I'm not sure why the author chose to focus on her, except that she's cute (he's quite eager that we know exactly what she wears in her off hours, especially that it's tight). She doesn't know that much about sushi when she starts- she thinks bonito flakes are bacon. She doesn't know anything at all about cooking. She's so afraid of her knives she holds them at the very tip of the handle. I have no idea how she didn't cut something off of herself, holding her knives like that for over two months of the three month class. She's shocked- shocked!- and disgusted to learn that she'll have to cut up a whole fish. She wants to be a sushi chef because it's yummy, she likes interacting with people, and she has absolutely nothing else to do with her life. Now, I'm happy that she's apparently doing well now. But when I read about food, I want to see someone who is talented and devoted, not somebody who bungles her way to competence. I guess she's still a sushi chef, but in all honesty, I don't care.
April 10, 2009
Maybe I'm reading too many books about food, but I'm getting slightly tired of reading books where, in the Acknowledgements section, the first thing the authors do is thank Harold McGee. Maybe I should just be re-reading Harold McGee.
The parts of Zen of Fish about the scientific composition about fish and the tradition of sushi are interesting, but the storyline that attempts to hold the book together is not. Especially when the main protagonist is an Ally McBeal-like woman whose greatest skills are that she can talk to the restaurant's American customers and decorate her sushi with little hearts. I was especially irritated that the author didn't explain why the sushi restaurant he featured in his book failed - all we hear is that they have night after night of full houses and then they have to close. Contrast this with Michael Ruhlman's Reach of a Chef, which gives much greater insight into the nature of the modern restaurant industry, and Zen of Fish comes up short.
The parts of Zen of Fish about the scientific composition about fish and the tradition of sushi are interesting, but the storyline that attempts to hold the book together is not. Especially when the main protagonist is an Ally McBeal-like woman whose greatest skills are that she can talk to the restaurant's American customers and decorate her sushi with little hearts. I was especially irritated that the author didn't explain why the sushi restaurant he featured in his book failed - all we hear is that they have night after night of full houses and then they have to close. Contrast this with Michael Ruhlman's Reach of a Chef, which gives much greater insight into the nature of the modern restaurant industry, and Zen of Fish comes up short.
October 12, 2008
Loved, loved, loved this book. Not only does it provide a wealth of interesting information about how sushi found its way to America, but it also offers some important, yet mostly unknown, sushi etiquitte tips. Even better, this book provides a wealth of other little-known facts, seemingly unrelated to sushi, such as how flamingos get their pink coloring. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick fascinating read.
June 18, 2018
I'm the kind of person who has Opinions about sushi; Expensive opinions which are best described by the omakase course at Sushi Tsujita on Sawtelle in Los Angeles. So a book about sushi is very much my style. Corson frames the past, present, and science of sushi around the 12-week course at the California Sushi Academy (operated by legendary chef Toshi Sugiura, once sushi chef to the stars).
The history is fascinating. Sushi evolved from a dish of fish fermented in a box of rice for months to a form prizing freshness and bite-sized perfect that we'd recognize in 19th century Japan. The word itself refers to the rice, not the fish. Tokyo-style sushi got a major boost during the post-war occupation, when MacArthur's occupational government approved a standardized plan which allowed sushi stalls to prepare meals using people's limited rice rations. Entrepreneurs in the 80s, including Toshi, found a way to translate exotic raw seafood to American tastes, though not without a lot of editing of the Japanese sushi tradition. Giant rolls drenched in spicy mayo and crunchy tempura bits would be anathema to traditionalists. In Japan, sushi bars are an ultra-masculine place defined by the relationships between the chef and the regulars. America has pioneered innovations like 'all you can eat', sushi boats, and the Rainbow Roll. To meet demand for trained sushi chefs, and to hold back the absolute vestiges of spicy tuna roll barbarity, Toshi compressed the multiyear apprenticeship into a 12 week course open to anyone.
We follow Kate, a 20 year old white girl from San Diego, as she ventures into the very male and very Japanese world of the sushi chef. I'll admit that I didn't much care for Kate initially; she's afraid of her knives, and seems to be a bit of flake. But she preservers, graduates, and gets a job as a chef. Meanwhile, we learn all about the messy process of cleaning meats, the magic of the perfect nigiri, and the science of why fish on rice tastes so good, and why under no circumstances should you make a paste of wasabi and soy sauce and smash your sushi in it.
Corson touches on the problems of overfishing, fish farming, and the problems of rising demand for sushi and falling standards of production. I think a world where more people are eating sushi is a better world, and Corson gives a sense of how even Des Moines can have good sushi.
The history is fascinating. Sushi evolved from a dish of fish fermented in a box of rice for months to a form prizing freshness and bite-sized perfect that we'd recognize in 19th century Japan. The word itself refers to the rice, not the fish. Tokyo-style sushi got a major boost during the post-war occupation, when MacArthur's occupational government approved a standardized plan which allowed sushi stalls to prepare meals using people's limited rice rations. Entrepreneurs in the 80s, including Toshi, found a way to translate exotic raw seafood to American tastes, though not without a lot of editing of the Japanese sushi tradition. Giant rolls drenched in spicy mayo and crunchy tempura bits would be anathema to traditionalists. In Japan, sushi bars are an ultra-masculine place defined by the relationships between the chef and the regulars. America has pioneered innovations like 'all you can eat', sushi boats, and the Rainbow Roll. To meet demand for trained sushi chefs, and to hold back the absolute vestiges of spicy tuna roll barbarity, Toshi compressed the multiyear apprenticeship into a 12 week course open to anyone.
We follow Kate, a 20 year old white girl from San Diego, as she ventures into the very male and very Japanese world of the sushi chef. I'll admit that I didn't much care for Kate initially; she's afraid of her knives, and seems to be a bit of flake. But she preservers, graduates, and gets a job as a chef. Meanwhile, we learn all about the messy process of cleaning meats, the magic of the perfect nigiri, and the science of why fish on rice tastes so good, and why under no circumstances should you make a paste of wasabi and soy sauce and smash your sushi in it.
Corson touches on the problems of overfishing, fish farming, and the problems of rising demand for sushi and falling standards of production. I think a world where more people are eating sushi is a better world, and Corson gives a sense of how even Des Moines can have good sushi.
August 18, 2017
I'm sure that Kate Murray is a lovely and intelligent woman. It is unfortunate that Corson's attempt to interweave personal documentary and history is such a miserable failure. I enjoyed half of this book--the part that really did seem to be "the story of sushi" rather than the "misogynist story of Kate the sushi chef."
First, let me address the writing. A good portion of the narrative is written in "See Spot run" style. I'm not sure if that was supposed to be charming, but I don't pick up a history of sushi and expect a nostalgic look at my primary school reader. Not only did this lack of syntactical variety make the book a bore to read (in places), but it really infantilized Kate (in addition to far more egregious errors). I had no respect for her as a "character" in the "story" of sushi. This is how Corson believes we will connect to Kate's story:
"Kate was reasonably happy until partway into her senior year, when she broke her index finger. The injury prevented her from playing soccer. Without soccer, Kate got depressed. She stopped going to school. Then she got sick."
Kate got depressed. Huh. We go on to learn that "She lost a lot of weight" and it was sushi that set her on the road back to health. Seems like a good narrative arc, until the rest of the book spends time on Kate's fear of gross fish guts, sharp knives, and a preference for Monster Energy drinks over Red Bull (just one instance of gratuitous detail, page 197).
There are more interesting characters at the California Sushi Academy! We get a reasonable glimpse of Zoran, the instructor and source of Kate's fear and trembling. Takumi and Marcos make token appearances so that we can remember there are other members of the class, but doubtless they would not have provided the narrative opportunities that Kate did. Witness:
"When she'd finished, she changed into tight jeans and a tank top..." (212)
"The top of her pink thong underwear showed above the waistline of her pants." (212)
"She sailed off to the ladies' room and slipped out of her uniform into a pair of pants and a tight shirt." (269)
But Corson's fixation on Kate's apparel isn't the only problem. Pages 281-2 seem to make a point that sushi chefs are perverts, with discussions of female customers with "ample bosom[s]"...Toshi tells us that "Working at the sushi bar really is the ideal angle for viewing breasts." The discussion of breasts fills up a page. This section is completely gratuitous and serves absolutely no purpose except to show that Toshi likes to oggle and objectify women. Super--I'm glad I learned that as part of "The story of SUSHI."
What frustrates me is that I'd love to keep roughly half the book as a reference. There's a lot of good stuff there, and Corson's actual FOOD and history writing is far more fluid and interesting than his portrayal of the humans in the story. If I'm being charitable, I think he bit off too much (pun intended) here--the history and sociology of food are enough without the soap opera. Corson makes several references to Jiro Ono, the master sushi chef made famous in the 2011 documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. It is a shame that this book predates the documentary, because Corson no doubt would have learned a lot about how to honor a documentary subject without sensationalizing.
First, let me address the writing. A good portion of the narrative is written in "See Spot run" style. I'm not sure if that was supposed to be charming, but I don't pick up a history of sushi and expect a nostalgic look at my primary school reader. Not only did this lack of syntactical variety make the book a bore to read (in places), but it really infantilized Kate (in addition to far more egregious errors). I had no respect for her as a "character" in the "story" of sushi. This is how Corson believes we will connect to Kate's story:
"Kate was reasonably happy until partway into her senior year, when she broke her index finger. The injury prevented her from playing soccer. Without soccer, Kate got depressed. She stopped going to school. Then she got sick."
Kate got depressed. Huh. We go on to learn that "She lost a lot of weight" and it was sushi that set her on the road back to health. Seems like a good narrative arc, until the rest of the book spends time on Kate's fear of gross fish guts, sharp knives, and a preference for Monster Energy drinks over Red Bull (just one instance of gratuitous detail, page 197).
There are more interesting characters at the California Sushi Academy! We get a reasonable glimpse of Zoran, the instructor and source of Kate's fear and trembling. Takumi and Marcos make token appearances so that we can remember there are other members of the class, but doubtless they would not have provided the narrative opportunities that Kate did. Witness:
"When she'd finished, she changed into tight jeans and a tank top..." (212)
"The top of her pink thong underwear showed above the waistline of her pants." (212)
"She sailed off to the ladies' room and slipped out of her uniform into a pair of pants and a tight shirt." (269)
But Corson's fixation on Kate's apparel isn't the only problem. Pages 281-2 seem to make a point that sushi chefs are perverts, with discussions of female customers with "ample bosom[s]"...Toshi tells us that "Working at the sushi bar really is the ideal angle for viewing breasts." The discussion of breasts fills up a page. This section is completely gratuitous and serves absolutely no purpose except to show that Toshi likes to oggle and objectify women. Super--I'm glad I learned that as part of "The story of SUSHI."
What frustrates me is that I'd love to keep roughly half the book as a reference. There's a lot of good stuff there, and Corson's actual FOOD and history writing is far more fluid and interesting than his portrayal of the humans in the story. If I'm being charitable, I think he bit off too much (pun intended) here--the history and sociology of food are enough without the soap opera. Corson makes several references to Jiro Ono, the master sushi chef made famous in the 2011 documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. It is a shame that this book predates the documentary, because Corson no doubt would have learned a lot about how to honor a documentary subject without sensationalizing.
July 6, 2008
I had planned to read The Zen of Fish by Trevor Corson for the Spring Reading Thing but here it is summer, so I didn't quite make that deadline. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and will probably be giving copies of it as presents to my fellow sushi lovers.
Trevor Corson spent three months with the last class of the California Sushi Academy before it was force to shut down temporarily due to budget problems. His chosen protagonist is a woman named Kate who for a number of reasons would appear to be the least likely person to become a sushi chef. Corson shows why she is probably the forerunner of what may become the typical American sushi chef: someone trained in the traditions of sushi but born into American culture and willing an able to train American customers to be better sushi connoisseurs.
As Kate and her classmates learn different pieces of sushi making, Corson fills in the blanks with fascinating discussions of history, biology and culture and so forth. Besides coming away with a tremendous craving for nigiri and sashimi, I learned a ton about both, including the proper way of enjoying both.
Trevor Corson spent three months with the last class of the California Sushi Academy before it was force to shut down temporarily due to budget problems. His chosen protagonist is a woman named Kate who for a number of reasons would appear to be the least likely person to become a sushi chef. Corson shows why she is probably the forerunner of what may become the typical American sushi chef: someone trained in the traditions of sushi but born into American culture and willing an able to train American customers to be better sushi connoisseurs.
As Kate and her classmates learn different pieces of sushi making, Corson fills in the blanks with fascinating discussions of history, biology and culture and so forth. Besides coming away with a tremendous craving for nigiri and sashimi, I learned a ton about both, including the proper way of enjoying both.
November 12, 2009
In this fact-filled but entertaining book, Corson follows a group of students as they struggle through California's first sushi school, the California Sushi Academy. Corson has picked out three particular students to follow: one is changing careers mid-life, one is going into sushi against the odds, and one is pretty young and seems to mostly provide comic relief along the way. He breaks up this narrative with descriptions of the history of sushi and information about fish and other sushi toppings as they are encountered by the students. The format works, and although I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to people who are squeamish (for relatively accurate descriptions of gutting fish and parasite talk), I would definitely recommend it to any other lovers of books on food. (Oddly, it looks like this book has been rebranded - Corson's website calls it The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice.)
October 17, 2010
This is an entertaining and educational book -- I could have done without all the travails of Kate, the "main character," and the other aspiring sushi chefs, but Corson included a class of students at a California sushi chef school in his narrative, telling us about sushi preparation and the sushi business through them. To me, more interesting was the history of sushi (which, naturally, was originally something very different than what you buy at the supermarket today and which you'd probably consider disgusting), as well as lots of chemistry for food science geeks (you learn all about exactly what chemicals make seafood so delicious, as well as all the ways it can go bad). Learn which fish sushi chefs consider to be true delicacies, and which are the crappy fish Japanese used to consider unworthy of sushi, but which Americans love.
Definitely made me want to go out and eat some sushi.
Definitely made me want to go out and eat some sushi.
February 27, 2011
The writing is not great. The information makes this a fun read, though, if you enjoy sushi and Japanese culture. I gave it an extra star for that, while the writing itself I'd give "2."
If you're on the fence about sushi and Japanese food, you may want to wait till you're hooked to read this. Believe me when I say you don't want to know all there is to know about nori, miso, and dashi. Yet.
If you're on the fence about sushi and Japanese food, you may want to wait till you're hooked to read this. Believe me when I say you don't want to know all there is to know about nori, miso, and dashi. Yet.
May 16, 2014
I have never enjoyed reading a book as I had with this one. Light, funny, informative, and with occasional suspense. It introduced me to culinary arts but it also refreshed my knowledge in microbiology, invertebrate zoology, marine biology, biochemistry, physiology, and even physics and believe it or not, computer science. I always have books to read but I guess it would be a long time before I could read another one quite like it.
October 8, 2020
Intolerable! The writing skill is dismal at best. I forced myself to read but i could not stand the story and dropped at the half. The book is like the porn movies with a story line. Exactly same way, the story and acting are useless even annoying in this case but the information snippets here and there about sushi, fish and japan are interesting. I am sure somewhere there is a better book than this about this subject.
February 4, 2014
Fun, fascinating book that interweaves the cultural history of sushi in Japan & America with a behind the scenes look at a sushi chef training academy in California. Only downside here: I was constantly hungry for sushi while reading this book. (Arguably not a real downside...)
Currently reading
August 20, 2008This is such a great documentary of sushi. The author creatively blends the historical facts with bits of a novel to keep the lessons entertaining.
January 17, 2013
One of the best food books I have ever read. As good as Kitchen Confidential, Heat and Fast Food Nation.
May 10, 2025
3.5 - Overall a fun book with a lot of good information. At times maybe a bit too on the nose, cheesy, or over the top. Rather than a history "from samurai to supermarket", it read as a documentary of a Los Angeles Sushi school with history interjected for context. Which was somewhat disappointing at first considering I picked up the book solely for that historical aspect.
The food history that was in the book was good. I learned a lot about fish and how to eat Sushi. The appendix at the end is very helpful.
The book primarily follows an American girl named Kate who doesn't have much direction in her life and decided to join the California Sushi Academy. The Academy was led by a Japanese man named Toshi who led the charge in introducing Sushi to America decades earlier. The American Sushi Frontier has always had two opposing sides: one who wants to preserve the Japanese Culture at the cost of reaching mass popularity and the other side who is willing to break rules to appeal to American Customers. Toshi was in the latter camp throughout his career, but at the end of the book,
Once I took the book for what it was I did come around to enjoying the Sushi Academy aspect of this book and how it served as an end to explain the overall lesson of the book and the state of American Sushi.
The food history that was in the book was good. I learned a lot about fish and how to eat Sushi. The appendix at the end is very helpful.
The book primarily follows an American girl named Kate who doesn't have much direction in her life and decided to join the California Sushi Academy. The Academy was led by a Japanese man named Toshi who led the charge in introducing Sushi to America decades earlier. The American Sushi Frontier has always had two opposing sides: one who wants to preserve the Japanese Culture at the cost of reaching mass popularity and the other side who is willing to break rules to appeal to American Customers. Toshi was in the latter camp throughout his career, but at the end of the book,
Once I took the book for what it was I did come around to enjoying the Sushi Academy aspect of this book and how it served as an end to explain the overall lesson of the book and the state of American Sushi.
October 21, 2018
This was a pretty terrible story wrapped around some interesting food chemistry and historical development of sushi and related dishes. The sushi academy could have been a fine device, except that ordinary people rarely do or say much worth putting in a book, a fact which Corson willfully ignores.
The audible version was a disappointment. The narration features both unfortunate voice characterization and randomly mispronounced words. Not Japanese words, English words. In a print book the reader could at least skip over the dull passages and get to the interesting parts. As it is, listeners have to slog through ten hours (!!) of tedious dialogue lifted apparently verbatim from Corson's time spent lurking around an intensive sushi class.
The audible version was a disappointment. The narration features both unfortunate voice characterization and randomly mispronounced words. Not Japanese words, English words. In a print book the reader could at least skip over the dull passages and get to the interesting parts. As it is, listeners have to slog through ten hours (!!) of tedious dialogue lifted apparently verbatim from Corson's time spent lurking around an intensive sushi class.
September 27, 2020
I read this book because...sushi. In all seriousness, I quite enjoyed "The Secret Life of Lobsters" by the same author and thought this would be an entertaining read as well. It is a very easy, very entertaining read. Yet at the same time, the author teaches the reader how to better enjoy traditional sushi, sushi mistakes to avoid, and the whole hidden history of sushi. For anyone who likes books about food, history, culture, or simply wants to have a better appreciation for the fish you eat, this book is for you.
June 24, 2018
Stories of the history of sushi wrapped in with the experiences of a young student, Kate, in a 12 week sushi "academy" in Hermosa Beach. Colorful characters Zoran, Takumi, Fie and Marcos help the tales move along. Too much detail about the technique for gutting each type of fish and their chemical make-up. Key facts are that spicy rolls were invented to present unappealing parts of the tuna that would otherwise be thrown out and that lower end sushi operations pack the rice more densely and use far more sugar. Even the top chefs use some sugar with the rice vinegar in the rice apparently.
Read
January 29, 2019Interesting tidbits about the whole sushi business. For example, the ginger was intended to be eaten between Sushi pieces to remove residual flavor so as to enjoy the next piece.
May 26, 2018
This book is such a strange twist of the history of sushi and a young woman named Kate who is taking a class on making sushi in hopes to be a sushi chef herself one day.
The portions of the books that dig into the history of sushi, the various items placed on rice when making sushi, and how sushi came to and eventually thrived in America are fantastic. I learned so much from these sections, as someone who enjoys sushi that I would have never known otherwise.
The portions dealing with the sushi academy and what became their 30th and final class in that iteration was also interesting. Watching them move through the lessons, unveiling various styles and types of sushi, and weaving in and out of the sushi history was mostly interesting.
The problem here comes with Kate. Kate is the main character through most of the book as we are experiencing the class through her and and following her much more closely than the other students. However, this is not her writing the story, but a reporter that was just hanging around paying attention.
She comes off as a spoiled young white woman who is looking for some way to turn talking to people into a job. She does everything wrong, which is fine except that allot of these have to do with effort like the cleanliness of her uniform, sharpness of her knives, etc. She seemed to think that as long as she wanted it enough in the moment, she didn't have to put in the work and care long term. Also, due to the outsider writing the story, the even handed portrayal of the teachers vs. her whiny talk about how they are mean to her just feel odd.
I was still ready to give this book 3/5 stars, however, there is this inexplicable 7-8 lines over two quick paragraphs later on where out of nowhere a couple of chefs stare at the breasts of a few young ladies and creepily openly discus in Japanese how the sushi chef table is the perfect vantage point to check them out.
How this made it through edits and was allowed by the chefs, I'm not sure. It was so out of nowhere in how they talk about the chefs and had zero impact to any facet of the story that it left me a bit shocked as the book was winding down.
The book was still an interesting read and I'm glad I decided to give this one a shot.
The portions of the books that dig into the history of sushi, the various items placed on rice when making sushi, and how sushi came to and eventually thrived in America are fantastic. I learned so much from these sections, as someone who enjoys sushi that I would have never known otherwise.
The portions dealing with the sushi academy and what became their 30th and final class in that iteration was also interesting. Watching them move through the lessons, unveiling various styles and types of sushi, and weaving in and out of the sushi history was mostly interesting.
The problem here comes with Kate. Kate is the main character through most of the book as we are experiencing the class through her and and following her much more closely than the other students. However, this is not her writing the story, but a reporter that was just hanging around paying attention.
She comes off as a spoiled young white woman who is looking for some way to turn talking to people into a job. She does everything wrong, which is fine except that allot of these have to do with effort like the cleanliness of her uniform, sharpness of her knives, etc. She seemed to think that as long as she wanted it enough in the moment, she didn't have to put in the work and care long term. Also, due to the outsider writing the story, the even handed portrayal of the teachers vs. her whiny talk about how they are mean to her just feel odd.
I was still ready to give this book 3/5 stars, however, there is this inexplicable 7-8 lines over two quick paragraphs later on where out of nowhere a couple of chefs stare at the breasts of a few young ladies and creepily openly discus in Japanese how the sushi chef table is the perfect vantage point to check them out.
How this made it through edits and was allowed by the chefs, I'm not sure. It was so out of nowhere in how they talk about the chefs and had zero impact to any facet of the story that it left me a bit shocked as the book was winding down.
The book was still an interesting read and I'm glad I decided to give this one a shot.
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