The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket

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The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 · rating details · 1,022 ratings · 235 reviews

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 i...more

Hardcover, 322 pages

Published May 29th 2007 by Harper (first published 2007)

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Sep 26, 2011 Eric_W rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: current-affairs, economics, essays-and-misc, history-historiography, science

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...more 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.”(less)

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Jan 28, 2012 Kater Cheek rated it 3 of 5 stars

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 tradi...more 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.

(less)

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Apr 12, 2011 HB rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Corson writes with the palette of an epicurean and the mind of a biologist. To be fair, the title as posted here is a bit grandiose, although "from Samurai to Supermarket" appears as "An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice" on my copy, which is still a bit hyperbolic but far more accurate. Although it's a bit light on full-on history, there are several chapters that dedicate passages to the origin of nigiri and makizushi; the most interesting writing is about fish themselves. Did you know: that b...more

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Aug 03, 2010 Cameling rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a fantastic book. It contains a little bit of fiction in the way of students attending a sushi course at the American Sushi Academy. Through their daily lessons at the academy, we are introduced to the history of sushi, its evolution from fish stored in fermented rice to the food that we are familiar with today.

We get lessons in mold, its importance to the Japanese chefs as far back as 1200 years ago, how bonito flakes are made, the role that kelp plays in creating a Japanese broth known...more

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Feb 20, 2010 Linda rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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...more

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Jun 24, 2009 Louise rated it 3 of 5 stars

After hearing Trevor Corson speak on the radio about sushi, I picked up his book because I wanted to learn more about one of my favorite foods. The Zen of Fish follows a new student through a sushi course at the California Sushi Academy. Mixed in with the story of the student and her classmates are historical facts and other information about things related to sushi such as fish, knives, rice, and etiquette.

While I was reading the book, I couldn't help feeling annoyed by the passages about Kate,...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Kana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, classics, educational-or-textbook, health-and-diet, historical, my-all-time-favorites

Summary
This is a pleasantly easy book to read. It's a historical walk through of the journey sushi has made, but it doesn't stop there. It manages to explain the history, flavors, changes with tradition and culture, Japanese traditions and preferences verses American traditions and preferences, along with a wide variety of 'how to's'.
I think the reason this book is so easy to read, is how it is setup. You follow one character, a complete sushi newbie as she takes sushi classes. This allows the...more

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Apr 10, 2009 Jo Lin rated it 2 of 5 stars

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...more

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Jun 10, 2011 Abe Something rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I got a lot of good information about sushi culture. Some info what is culturally expected by Japanese sushi chefs and where Americans go wrong. I had hoped the book would deliver more of this information and truly told the story of sushi as it claims to do. This book could have used a greater grounding in the history of sushi. There is some there, of course, but this book is more character driven than I would have expected.

I didn't care for Corson's chosen star of the book, Kate. Corson desper...more

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Nov 12, 2009 Margaret rated it 3 of 5 stars

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 toppin...more

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Feb 26, 2011 C rated it 4 of 5 stars

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.

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Feb 21, 2012 Mouldy Squid rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reference-and-non-fiction

A delightful book dedicated to the history of the Japanese food know as sushi. Corson frames the history of this unique food with the story of a class of students training in the authentic Japanese style of sushi cooking. This frame adds to the enjoyment of the text by detailing the trials of several of the students as they struggle to learn the art of sushi, and is worth the price of admission alone. For Westerners unfamiliar with the food, or anyone interested in how sushi was developed, how i...more

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May 22, 2009 William rated it 4 of 5 stars

I think anyone would enjoy this book, not just hard core sushi fiends. Who knew the evolution of fish was so interesting? I enjoyed following the students progress through the California Sushi Academy. Coincidentally I have been planning to take a one day intro to sushi class at the same location. I didn't know the book was set there when I picked it up so it created extra interest for me because of that.
My one complaint is that the author did not examine sushi-lust as it relates to the ocean's...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Scott Buchanan rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: No one

I have to admit to being hugely disappointed with this book. It had been on my to read list for about 2 years so had some real anticipation when I started it.

I came to the book thinking it would something in the mould of say a Mark Kurlansky (author of Cod and Salt) but it wasn't even close.

The story follows a small group of people newly enrolled at the Sushi Academy of America. The author's main character is 'Kate' who spends what seems the whole book being completely useless. To start off you...more

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Feb 03, 2009 Ally rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A perfect blend of sushi exposes, marine biology, Japanese and American history as seen through the strangely fascinating lens of fish and rice and a whole lot of fermented things.

And that's the most fun tug-of-war that the whole book leaves you with. I alternately wanted to run out and try all the different kinds of marine life parts I was reading about, but then I would become gaggingly horrified at some of the preparation techniques. As in, I don't think I'll be ordering octopus anytime soon....more

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Oct 20, 2011 Osho rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

This is two intertwined narratives, one interesting, one not. The uninteresting narrative is an account of a sushi training academy that doesn’t ring true for two reasons: First, the focal character, Kate, does nothing right until she is fairly advanced in her program. For someone who wants to work in sushi preparation, she and her classmates know less about sushi than I do as a casual consumer of Japanese food. Second, the knowledge deficits of Kate and company too neatly serve the structure of...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Ejhicks rated it 3 of 5 stars

I listened to The Zen of Fish as an audiobook on a long car trip. Under the circumstances, it managed to hold my attention relatively well, but I doubt that I would have finished the book had I been reading it in hardcopy.

I enjoyed the history of how Japanese cuisine - and particularly sushi - spread in popularity across the U.S., starting in California in the 1970s. It was also interesting to learn more about how sushi is traditionally eaten in Japan.

However, I found the focus on Kate, a rather...more

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Feb 11, 2013 David Glad rated it 4 of 5 stars

Kind of an in between reading for me for why I picked this up.

The book definitely used history, story, memorable characters, and a perceived sushi culture that is in danger of losing its heritage to bring forth an interesting narrative.

Gives an idea of what it is like to train to be a sushi chef (keep the knives SHARP at all times) and how you need confidence and personality to interact with the customers. Author spent considerable time dwelling somewhat on the difficulty of female sushi chefs -...more

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Aug 31, 2009 Kathleen rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I started The Story of Sushi, I was surprised that there was a "story" about a young American Caucasian woman starting sushi school. I expected to read a more straight-forward nonfiction account of sushi's history in Japan and its increasing popularity in the U.S. I quickly came to appreciate the personal story of the students and the instructors as breaks from the scientific and historic aspects of fish, rice, and their byproducts. Like a good piece of sushi, the story and the educational...more

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Feb 23, 2009 Simon rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 17, 2010 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, food, audiobook

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 co...more

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Aug 20, 2008 Lpossiel is currently reading it

This is such a great documentary of sushi. The author creatively blends the historical facts with bits of a novel to keep the lessons entertaining.

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Nov 07, 2011 ilike merey rated it 3 of 5 stars

I worked for two years in a Japanese restaurant learning how to make sushi without knowing a damn thing about the background of the food I loved so much. That made this book extra interesting to me. 'Fish' is part history lesson, part scientific explanation and part narrative about what exactly goes on in a sushi academy...

Bad shit out of the way first:
1. Kate. The girl Corson focuses on in the school bits. Kate's company at times was very difficult (though she did somehow worm her way into my h...more

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Aug 24, 2011 Deanna rated it 4 of 5 stars

A very entertaining read! I especially liked that it merged history and information with fiction in an effortless blend. The history was extremely interesting, and I often found a tidbit of information that made me itch to read it out loud to my family. A lot of things I have previously wondered have been explained here; why takeout sushi boxes have a jagged little hedge of plastic grass, why Japanese restaurants always seem to have short curtains hanging over their shop, and plenty of things ab...more

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Aug 14, 2010 Liz rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: food, history, non-fiction

Enjoyed reading this book even with only 3 stars. I learned a lot about sushi and a myriad of other foods etc involved with it. I liked how the author kept a running story with the sushi school he was following (attending?). But my one disappointment was the author's lack of travel involved with this book. I would have liked his experiences to be more in depth. Traveling to Japan would have been an incredible asset to the book. Oh well. Well researched even with no travel.

I would recommend if n...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Tara rated it 2 of 5 stars

Tedious.
I feel like Corson spent time at the sushi academy and had a stack of notes that he didn't know what to do with. He then proceeded to write a novel about a girl called Kate.
A few chapters in I sighed and checked the dust jacket for reviews. I even checked reviews on Goodreads to see if I was missing something. I was far enough into the book that I kept reading, but I didn't get anything new.
Unless you want to read about a girl he learns how to make sushi at a failing restaurant, don't...more

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Jan 19, 2009 Bria rated it 3 of 5 stars

I already know quite an extensive amount about sushi so I was more interested in reading about the experiences of the students, however these characters are really used as a literacy device to introduce the history of sushi and its ingredients and don’t serve much other purpose. This would have been great if I didn’t know much about sushi but because I do I was quite infuriated by Kate - who is preposterously sushi ignorant and does not seem to have much motivation for taking the class. Saying t...more

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Nov 21, 2008 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Zen of Fish follows a student seeking to become a sushi chef from her first class to graduation, giving the reader an opportunity to experience what goes on behind the sushi bar. Filling the book with graphic details of preparing fish, and even creating the bacteria that creates sushi rice, the author has left this reader more careful about ordering sushi.

The book also delves into the rich history of sushi and describes how and why it became Americanized, complete with colorful minor charact...more

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Oct 02, 2011 Jun Nozaki rated it 4 of 5 stars

Once I got over being annoyed at the main character for being so annoying, the book really took off.

There is a lot of interesting stuff that's covered about sushicraft and all the mystical mojo surrounding it. Anybody who's into sushi and food in general will find out some cool facts.

Some of the passages, which I guess were added to flesh out the characters, kind of fleshed the author as kind of a pervbot. This is by no means bad, it was just slightly odd in contrast with the rest of the book (...more

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Jan 10, 2009 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, food

The Zen of Fish is a well written book that any sushi enthusiast will enjoy. The book is full of sushi history and facts. For example, sushi originated in Southeast Asia as a way to preserve fish on rice. Also, sushi was the original fast food in the streets of Japan. To introduce the reader about sushi the author frames the book around students attending the California Sushi Academy. The author does a nice job of weaving the trails and tribulations of the students as they attend school with int...more

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