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“The Lobster Sex Guy” and “Sushi Concierge” are TradeMarks of Trevor Corson.
TREVOR
CORSON
Bonus:
for The Story of Sushi
by Trevor Corson
previously titled The Zen of Fish
Publishers Weekly calls it “Riveting . . .
One of the more compelling food-themed
books in recent years.”
In a starred review, Publishers Weekly writes:
“Corson spent months at a ‘sushi school’ run out of a Japanese restaurant in Hermosa Beach, Calif., observing the students as they learned how to prepare a seemingly endless variety of fish. Although the reporting focuses primarily on Kate, a young woman who struggles to overcome her lack of confidence, many of the other students get a turn in the spotlight, as do the restaurant’s owner and the head instructor. This would make for a riveting enough story on its own, but Corson beautifully intersperses the drama with lessons about the history and science of each fish the class encounters, along with the rice and wasabi. He also reveals that just about everything Americans know about eating sushi is wrong, down to using chopsticks to dunk their fish in soy sauce. Foodies will find dozens of useful tips to enhance their appreciation of ‘the fast food of old Tokyo,’ especially if they entrust an experienced chef to prepare an omakase meal for them. The combination of culinary insights and personal drama makes for one of the more compelling food-themed books in recent years.”
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“The Story of Sushi is a pleasure to read, entertaining and informative, with compelling characters and fascinating history, all told in an easy and natural voice. Excellent food journalism.”
—Michael Ruhlman,
author of The Soul of a Chef
• • •
More reviews:
“A clever narrative strategy—the reader learns the practice and history of sushi alongside the students. … The classroom scenes are intercut with 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 of the invention of soy sauce, the sex life of red algae and the importance of umami, that mysterious fifth taste that underlies so much of Eastern cuisine. His chapter on rice, a subject that Americans take for granted, is itself worth the price of the book.”
—New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Pick)
“Rarely has a Westerner written so knowledgeably, or entertainingly, about the subject [of sushi]. ... Corson explores all this and more with an expert’s command of the subject and an eccentric’s instinct for the dumbfounding detail. (Sea urchins share 70 percent of their genetic code with humans.) This is the real sushi course, and ... the reader emerges not only enlightened but a much better sushi eater.”
—New York Times
“A meticulously reported account ... chock-full of great tidbits, revelatory findings, amazing science. ... What could have been a dry sushi treatise is instead turned into a compelling read by the writer's inventive narrative approach. ... Corson focuses on Kate Murray, a young San Diego woman who seems about as likely to become a sushi chef as the governor of California. ... The fast-paced, week-by-week education and training of these struggling neophytes provides a fine framework for Corson to carefully weave in illuminating plot threads on everything from the development of sushi to the natural evolution of 30 fish and plants that are the key ingredients of the cuisine. ... 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
“Corson leaves no detail unexplained, and true food nerds will appreciate his rigor. I found the human drama the most fascinating aspect, especially the melding of ancient and modern methodology, and how chefs must adapt by inventing ‘creative rolls’ to fulfill customers’ quests for the exotic. And don’t worry, raw-fish fans—this isn’t the kind of nausea-inducing exposé Fast Food Nation was; you’ll still be lining up to order your favorite snack, but with renewed appreciation.”
—Penthouse
“Using the students, the teachers, and the [California Sushi] Academy's owner for his main characters, Corson hangs his story of fish, Japanese culture, and the sushi revolution in America on one semester at the academy. The action inside the school is fast and furious and should keep you flipping pages. If scenes of fish gutting doesn't keep you riveted, then women fighting for equality in a man's world might. Anyway, the catering jobs to Hollywood sets will definitely do so. The Story of Sushi is an excellent example of the narrative non-fiction style of writing. Corson may focus on his characters, but he blends in gobs of detailed information culled from marine biology, food science, Japanese history and food trends in the U.S.”
—Santa Cruz Sentinel
“Fun, even sumptuous, and occasionally touching. ... I was enchanted with how this tale unfolds while the reader wanders through the fish market and into a three-month sushi course with Corson’s protagonist, Kate Murray. The Story of Sushi is a highly readable field guide to sushi, beginning to end. Corson is a fine nature writer, a thorough and compassionate researcher with a well-honed literary voice. ... This is a gem of a book for foodlovers who care about their sources. It should be required reading for every chef and aspiring chef in North America.”
—Edmonton Journal
“The Story of Sushi is an amicably told tale that takes a quirky, humanistic, and mostly non-linear approach to the story of sushi … [the reporting] technique creates an immediate (and lasting) respect for the author’s purity. … Corson’s work mimics an omakase meal (which signals to the chef that you are in his or her hands), guiding the reader on a mostly enjoyable, sometimes delightful journey through sushi land. … Corson also possesses a touch of the poetic, visible in beautiful sentiments.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Corson is an excellent writer who impresses without making any visible effort to show off. He quickly sketches several compelling personalities among the cooking school students. Foremost among them is Kate, a likable but timid young woman often cowed by her teacher, Zoran, who is a bit of a drill sergeant. ... Throughout the book, Corson uses short, direct sentences to speed information into your brain, whetting your appetite for more. The Story of Sushi has a consistently graceful pace, shifting smoothly back and forth between human drama at the school and fascinating facts about fish. ... Like a good sushi chef, he pares them down to their essence and serves them up in all their beautiful simplicity, without excessive garnish.”
—Daily Yomiuri (Japan)
“Filled with cultural history, science, gastronomical observations, Bourdain-like cooking tales and food facts, The Story of Sushi is ridiculously entertaining and interesting.”
—Powells Books
“There is so much interesting information about the origins of sushi ... that anyone with the slightest interest will come away from The Story of Sushi with enough nuggets of information for a satisfying meal.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Lively. ... Readers who enjoy sushi will enjoy Corson’s vivid mixture of history, science and personal anecdotes.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Modest, unpretentious, and personal—it offers the familiar comfort of an omakase lunch.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Trevor Corson’s new history of sushi should come with a warning. Something like: ‘Eat before you read. This book causes intense cravings.’ ... A highly readable account.”
—Bellingham Herald
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• • •
“What a delightful book! I felt I was with Kate on her journey through California Sushi Academy to pursue her interest. The reader had more than an eyeful of the culture of sushi because Corson laboriously explained the origin, history and development of the key ingredients and making of sushi, as Kate learnt her craft. A very satisfying read.”
— ISABEL (HOOVER, AL)
“Interesting book! I really enjoyed learning about how sushi came to America and how the chefs learn to make it. An enjoyable read!”
— SHEILA (MCDONOUGH, GA)
“This book was a pleasure to read and has earned a space on our kitchen reading shelf ... even my 15 year old sushi loving son, read this and enjoyed it! What a find! Thank you, Trevor Corson for the peek behind the scenes!”
— LORI ANN (HUBERT, NC)
“This book has made my life so much easier because it is now on my Christmas list for at least four different people! I throughly enjoyed reading Corson's work and spent much of my past weekend reading parts of it aloud—especially the appendix, 'How to Eat Sushi.' It has also made me feel brave enough to move away from all of the rolls I typically get at sushi restaurants.”
— ELIZABETH (DURHAM, NC)
“Corson's book The Story of Sushi is a fun trip through a world that is virtually misunderstood in American culture. The trek he takes the reader on is one of the tastes, culture and scientific curiosities that are the world of sushi chefs, sushi aficionados and wannabes. I think I would like have my friends read this with my friends and start stalking the true sushi here in America.”
— VICTORIA (CUMBERLAND, VA)
“The Story of Sushi is an interesting and approachable look at the culture, work and art of sushi. The author intersperses the tale of Kate, a student at the California Sushi Academy with details about the culture that brought sushi into being, the social and economic factors that shaped how we are served sushi today and the chemistry of not only the fish but the many other ingredients we never think about that make sushi so delicious. His non-linear delivery of interesting facts of fish life-cycles and colorful bits of history interspersed with the personal experiences of Kate and her fellow students at the academy results in a pleasant whole that does not read like a textbook, a chemistry book, a natural biology book or a personal diary but holds the most interesting pieces of all of the above.”
— MELANIE (SUNDERLAND, MA)
“I liked this book a lot. There's so much in the book that while I was reading it I felt as though I should be taking notes, but I didn't want to put it down. It's definitely worth a second reading. The Story of Sushi is: a fascinating summary of sushi and its history, in Japan and then in the US; a useful guide to wild and farmed fish and how to order and eat it; a fine story of a group of people at a cooking school learning how to prepare sushi and related dishes; an excellent introduction to the science of meat; useful advice on how to cook various fish; and some Japanese vocabulary. If there's some other way to slice a fish story, I don't know what it is.”
— GRAEME (WALTHAM, MA)
“Trevor Corson's The Story of Sushi is many things: an engaging story of real people, a history of one kind of Japanese food especially in America, and a lot of information about food (especially fish) and what makes it tasty.
“The basic frame for all this is built around a group of students and their training, week by week at the California Sushi Academy in Hermosa Beach, California, run by Toshi Sugiura, one of the first chefs to make sushi popular with American customers. Each week's training provides forays into the science of savor, especially in Japanese food and fish, and gives anybody curious about why some foods taste so good lots of science to understand it.
“Corson also gives lots of information about where the critters that go into sushi come from, and what they're like. In many ways, the book's as much a natural history as zen. And each week provides windows on how a sushi restaurant works, as well as the way that sushi became a Japanese success story of the twentieth century and a stimulus for not only the fishing industry but aquaculture around the world.
“Who knew that much is owed to MacArthur's rebuilding of Japan after World War II for sushi as it is now, both in Japan and in the U.S.? Even while giving Americans their due, however, Corson is very attentive to and respectful of Japanese tradition and culture—even when practiced by people who aren't Japanese.
“Besides a social history of sushi, we get an ecological history of sushi and of fish farming, in which Corson doesn't exaggerate either the benefits or the risks. I was left with a healthy caution about the state of the seas, and the impact of over-popular food fads (sushi included) on them.
“Building his information around a rather diverse group of real people taking the sushi chef training at California Sushi Academy is a stroke of genius! All the information in the book is related to the actual tasks and lessons of the students and staff, and, because the students are a really diverse group, Corson can show (and not have to tell) many of the social dynamics around gender, age, prejudice, self-esteem, and financial and personal struggle that are just as real and just as important as the proper technique for washing and preparing rice for sushi. ...
“Finally, Corson has provided a book that not only gives a good picture of sushi as a food and art form, but the whys and wherefores behind both. It's refreshing for sushi not to be mystified or demystified, but to get a much deeper sense of what it's about, both now and over time, and where sushi as a culinary tradition (and possibility for eating out) may well be going. One implicit effect, if not message, was to provide good criteria for judging the quality of any sushi restaurant I at least will be eating in henceforth, and I am deeply appreciative for that gift.
“As an aside, I offer the following anecdote. Once upon a time, many years after I had left combination sushi platters behind, and, on this particular evening, after I had been enjoying the sushi in the Hotel Nikko in Atlanta for a couple of hours, a sushi chef asked me where I learned to speak Japanese; my answer, as true today as then (alas) was 'I don't speak Japanese, I speak sushi.' After reading The Story of Sushi, I also know now that I didn't really even speak sushi, at least not nearly as well as I thought! However, thanks to the book, I do know the lovely nigiri-zushi that chef made for us: engawa. The only other omakase I've ever had that was nearly as good was monk fish liver!
“Great job, Trevor! The book's an engaging read (I found it hard to put down), incredibly informative, and a really good grounding in knowing, loving and speaking sushi.”
— LINDE (CHAMPAIGN, IL)
