The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice (P.S. (Paperback)): An Unlikely Story of Raw Fish and Rice - Softcover

Corson, Trevor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060883510 ISBN 13: 9780060883515

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2008

Synopsis

A New York Times Editor's Choice

Everything you never knew about sushi-- its surprising origins, the colorful lives of its chefs, and the bizarre behavior of the creatures that compose it

Trevor Corson takes us behind the scenes at America's first sushi-chef training academy, as eager novices strive to master the elusive art of cooking without cooking. He delves into the biology and natural history of the edible creatures of the sea, and tells the fascinating story of an Indo-Chinese meal reinvented in nineteenth-century Tokyo as a cheap fast food. He reveals the pioneers who brought sushi to the United States and explores how this unlikely meal is exploding into the American heartland just as the long-term future of sushi may be unraveling.

The Story of Sushi is at once a compelling tale of human determination and a delectable smorgasbord of surprising food science, intrepid reporting, and provocative cultural history.

About this title

Review:

Illuminating new book...--Time Out New York

"One of the best things you can enjoy without melted butter."--Natural History magazine

"Trevor Corson's reverence for all things from the sea is palpable. In his new book The Zen of Fish he takes you on a fascinating journey into the world of sushi. The story he relates is rich in detail, thoroughly engaging, simply a pleasure to get lost in."--Eric Ripert, executive chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin, and author of "A Return to Cooking" and "Le Bernardin Cookbook: Four-Star Simplicity."

"Corson serves up a savory blend of history and science along with a satisfying course of lobster and human behavior."--Boston Herald on The Secret Life of Lobsters

Editor's Choice; "An often amusing history."--New York Times Book Review

"Lively. . . . vivid mixture of history, science, and personal anecdotes."--Los Angeles Times

"The Zen of Fish" tells us everything we could possibly want to know about every aspect of sushi.--Boston Globe

"Authoritative, often amusing, chapters on sushi history, marine biology and the physiognomy of taste. While the students hack away at mackerel, Corson serves up bite-size explanations. . . . His chapter on rice, a subject that Americans take for granted, is itself worth the price of the book."--New York Times Book Review

"A meticulously reported account. . . . Corson proves a master at providing a non-stop banquet of tasty morsels sure to delight anyone who has taken a seat at a sushi bar."--Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"A fascinating story, blending science, politics and history . . . the writing is vivid."--USA Today on The Secret Life of Lobsters

Synopsis:

Escorts the reader behind the sushi bar, through an extensive three-month course at the California Sushi Academy in Los Angeles where he spent a semester shadowing its founder and a select group of master chefs and their trainees and experienced first hand what's involved in becoming a naturalist with a knife. As the story of the chefs and trainees unfolds, he describes the different types of organisms that compose sushi, their behavior, biology, evolutionary origins, ecological niches, and nutritional properties. He discusses the seasonal progression of the organisms and explores the techniques by which they're harvested, including what's the best time for harvesting and why. He then provides a history of sushi's origins and evolution in Japan and its transplantation to the United States via Los Angeles, and most compellingly, considers the future of sushi in America, revealing why the best sushi chefs of the future will most likely not be Japanese and male.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0060883510
• ISBN 13: 9780060883515
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 418