The Story Of Sushi

I love to read.  And I love Japan (mostly)!  I am constantly prowling for new titles to stuff into my already-bursting bookcases and help fill quiet, deployment evenings.  Most of my reading material on Japan can fit into a few general categories, such as: 

-Decorating with Japanese stuff  (How many different ways can I repurpose this obi?).

-Explaining Japanese customs (How bumbling are my attempts at bowing?).

-Unpacking Japanese gender roles (Why are so many English-language students female, educated, and single?).

-Uncomfortably common ethnocentric attitudes  (Why is "gaijin"such an offensive term?).

-Japanese beauty routines (If American women engage in fairly thorough body hair removal, why do we still seem so hairy to Japanese?  Hint: check the arms of every single Japanese woman you see from now on.)

-Japanese cooking (I have to press the liquid out of tofu before cooking with it!?).

So when Amazon.com recommended The Story Of Sushi as a book that I might enjoy, I pounced on it.  The only things that I had learned about sushi- after two and a half years of living in Japan- is that authentic Japanese sushi doesn't have cream cheese in it (WHAT!?) and that you are supposed to eat each piece of sushi or sashimi whole. So I was excited to learn more about another aspect of Japanese culture.

Amazon and its brilliant algorithms strike again!

The Story Of Sushi, by Trevor Corson, follows Kate Murray, a young American woman who stumbles upon the California sushi industry and decides to take a stab (haha) at it.  The only problem is, women can't be sushi chefs.  It's not that they aren't allowed to be sushi chefs...its that they just can't, by virtue of being female.  Behind the sushi counter is sacred space. In Japan, a female sushi chef would be unthinkable.  Women in Japan often even have a hard time eating in sushi bars without a man to accompany them (Since this book was published five years ago, I hope that there is a female sushi chef in Japan now).  Fortunately for Kate, she is studying in the United States.  The reader travels with Kate as she enters a California sushi school and learns a lot about sushi... and herself.

Woven throughout Kate's story is a fast-paced history of sushi- its ancient, murky origins in Southeast Asia's Mekong Delta, the role the American Occupation played in bringing sushi to its current prominence, the secret soy recipe that every respectable sushi bar owner develops, the wasabi paste we buy in grocery stores that doesn't actually contain any wasabi, and the invention of the (infamous?) California Roll.

Once I started this book I could not put it down.  I wouldn't say that reading it has made me more confident at our favorite sushi bar, however.  For me, this is one of the painful and humbling parts of living in Japan- the more I learn, the more I realize that just about every interaction I have with Japan and the Japanese is peppered with gaffe after gaffe.   For instance:  That thing we Americans do with wasabi and soy sauce?  You know, mixing them together into a grey-ish soup and then dipping our sushi into it?  HUGE FAUX PAS.  DON'T DO IT. EVER.

At least that's the one thing I can do right in sushi bars, now, after reading this book.


Disclaimer:  I do my best to make sure all my information is accurate.  However, details may change or I may just be flat-out wrong.  Please let me know if something needs a correction.  Thank-you!