Beware 30-foot Tapeworms, Tuna Pirates As Sushi Conquers Planet

mrmoshe · August 9, 2007

Beware 30-Foot Tapeworms, Tuna Pirates as Sushi Conquers Planet

Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Sushi's migration from Tokyo food stalls to the aisles of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. so horrifies purists that it sparked a government plan last year to certify the authenticity of ``Japanese'' food served abroad.

Yet outside forces have long influenced sushi, notably during the U.S. occupation of Japan after World War II, as journalist Sasha Issenberg explains in ``The Sushi Economy,'' a persuasive look at how the tuna used in sushi epitomizes trade in our increasingly integrated planet.

``Eating at a sushi bar is not so much an escape from fast- paced global commerce as an immersion in it,'' he writes.

Issenberg takes us on a journey from the center of the sushi industry at Tsukiji Market in Tokyo to its first export market, California. Along the way, he describes how (and where) the fish is caught, auctioned and consumed, introducing us to fishermen in the Mediterranean and tuna barons in Australia.

The observation that tuna has become a global commodity is hardly new: Japanese fish companies have long been forced to compete for supplies amid rising prices and falling stocks.

Where Issenberg excels is in showing how the tuna industry, with its combination of personal relationships, attention to detail and need for careful handling, has become a model for how trade can and should work.

Bluefin Pirates

The book is weaker when dealing with how surging demand threatens tuna stocks, though the danger becomes clear when he witnesses illegal fishing of prized bluefin in the Mediterranean.

``These pirates may operate at the margins of the law, but they are not so much living outside the new global economy as thriving upon it,'' he writes.

What he fails to offer is a viable solution.

Tuna's role in the international food chain also comes front and center in ``The Zen of Fish,'' in which reporter Trevor Corson tracks a class of wannabe master chefs on a three-month course at the California Sushi Academy in Los Angeles.

Corson follows the struggles of Kate, a 20-year-old student, to master the art of sushi, starting with rice and cucumber rolls and ending with bluefin. The supporting cast includes Takumi, a former Japanese pop star attempting to hide his identity, and Australian instructor Zoran, whose prowess at decorating sushi platters earns him the moniker ``Zen gardener in disguise.''

Raw Trout

Culinary techniques and the rationale behind them form the major point of this book, including why farmed salmon needs pigment-laced feed to stay orange and why sushi chefs leave certain kinds of fish off the menu:

``A museum in Tokyo dedicated to parasites houses a tapeworm that was extracted from a man who'd eaten a raw trout, a freshwater relative of salmon,'' Corson explains. ``The worm in the museum is nearly 30 feet long,'' or about 9 meters.

Corson, who has worked on commercial fishing boats off Maine, displays an almost encyclopedic knowledge of fish. Did you know that a tuna can cook its own flesh by struggling too hard against a fisherman's hook?

Less interesting are Kate's trials, which at times feel forced: ``She was having enough trouble in class, feeling like the flaky girl who couldn't do anything right,'' he writes.

The class does highlight how U.S.-style sushi blends tradition and innovation, some of it instigated by Japanese chefs. Toshi, ``a Buddhist warrior-monk performing magical mudra,'' works alongside Takumi, who creates such concoctions as Russian Roulette sushi laced with wasabi.

For sushi diehards, that kind of experimentation may border on blasphemy. Yet both authors convincingly argue that innovation lies at the core of why sushi is so popular in the first place.