The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy [Mass Market Paperback]

Sasha Issenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2008

From the sea to your plate, the first international tour of sushi’s journey in the global marketplace

One generation ago, sushi’s narrow reach ensured that sports fishermen who caught tuna in most of the world sold the meat for pennies as cat food. Today, the fatty cuts of tuna known as toro are among the planet’s most coveted luxury foods, worth hundreds of dollars a pound and capable of losing value more quickly than any other product on earth. So how has one of the world’s most popular foods gone from being practically unknown in the U.S. to being served in towns all across America, and in such a short span of time? Sushi aficionados and newcomers alike will be surprised to learn the true history, intricate business, and international allure behind this fascinating food.

A riveting combination of culinary biography, behind-the-scenes restaurant detail, and a unique exploration of globalization’s dynamics, journalist Sasha Issenberg traces sushi’s journey from Japanese street snack to global delicacy. THE SUSHI ECONOMY takes you through the stalls of Tokyo’s massive Tsukiji market, where the auctioneers sell millions of dollars of fish each day, and to the birthplace of modern sushi--in Canada. He then follows sushi’s evolution in America, exploring how it became LA’s favorite food. You’re taken behind the sushi bar with the chef Nobu Matsuhisa, whose distinctive travels helped to define the flavors of global sushi cuisine, and with a unique sushi chef blazing a path in Texas. Issenberg also delves into the complex economics of the fish trade, following the ups and downs of the hunt for bluefin off New England, the tuna cowboys on the southern coast of Australia who invented the art of tuna ranching, and uncovering the mysterious underworld of pirates, smugglers, and the tuna black market.

Few businesses reveal the complex dynamics of globalization as acutely as the tuna’s journey from the sea to the sushi bar. After traversing the pages of THE SUSHI ECONOMY, you’ll never see the food on your plate — or the world around you — quite the same way again.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This debut from a promising young investigative reporter at Philadelphia magazine depicts gleeful, gluttonous globalization in all its glory. Visit Tokyo's world-famous Tsukiji fish market, experience the weird world of tuna-tossing in Southern Australia, and relive the birth of modern sushi in Prince Edward Island. Fans of Japanese cuisine and popular economics alike will find much to love in this delectable nonfiction adventure. --Jason Kirk --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this intriguing first book, Philadelphia-based journalist Issenberg roams the globe in search of sushi and takes the reader on a cultural, historical and economic journey through the raw-fish trade that reads less like economics and more like an entertaining culinary travelogue. In the years since the end of WWII, the practical protein-and-rice delicacy once unknown outside Japan has become so commonplace that the elements of its trade affect a far-flung global network of fanatics, chefs, tuna ranchers and pirates. While the West reached out for things Japanese, from management techniques to Walkmans, the growth of the market for quality fish, especially maguro, the bluefin tuna beloved by sushi eaters everywhere, paralleled Japan's rise from postwar ruin to 1980s economic powerhouse and into its burst-bubble present. Issenberg follows every possible strand in this worldwide web of history, economics and cuisine—an approach that keeps the book lively with colorful places and characters, from the Tokyo fish market to the boats of North Atlantic fishermen, from tuna ranches off the coast of Australia to the sushi bars in Austin, Tex. He weaves the history of the art and cuisine of sushi throughout, and his smart, lively voice makes the most arcane information fascinating. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (April 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592403638
• ISBN-13: 978-1592403639
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #506,110 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sasha Issenberg is the Washington correspondent for Monocle. He covered the 2008 presidential campaign for The Boston Globe as a national political reporter, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, Slate, and George, where he served as a contributing editor. He is the author of The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy, published in 2007.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Whale of a Tale, May 6, 2007

By 

viktor_57 "viktor_57" (Fairview, Your Favorite State, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy (Hardcover)

I love sushi, and I love economics, but even if I cared for neither, "The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy" would still be an entertaining and eye-opening read. A tale of culture, globalization, cuisine, and historical drama, "The Sushi Economy" traces back the modern explosion of sushi back to the 1970's. Although sushi had been sold by Tokyo street vendors in the 19th century, its rebirth as a culinary and cultural staple began when Japanese air shippers, after dropping off shipments of manufactured goods in North America, brought back North Atlantic bluefin tuna--at the time considered worthless and fit only for cat food--rather than fly home empty planes. Concurrent advances in refrigeration allowed seafood to be shipped large distances, and this increase in supply, along with a booming post-war economy, fueled Japanese demand for premium sushi and saw the rapid expansion of sushi bars throughout the country. Japanese overseas expansion brought sushi along with it and spawned a growing network of suppliers, including fishermen and the newer fisheries, and specialty distributors, as well as black market dealers and smugglers.

The seafood infrastructure, however, was only one part of the sushi explosion, as innovative sushi chefs became entrepreneurs, initially marketing sushi as a chic, upscale delicacy but then broadening its appeal by adapting to local flavors and cuisine.

Despite its specific origins from a small, island nation, sushi has become a global cuisine and the economy that supports it a global one as well. "The Sushi Economy" may be one of the best examples of this new, global economy at work as Issenberg traces the origins of the sushi on our plate, formerly an exotic delicacy but now almost as common as hamburgers, through the numerous retailers, distributors and suppliers back to the fishing grounds themselves, which may be half a world away. Yet despite this distance the innovations of the decentralized economy are able to bring you your fish within the small window of freshness that keeps a hundred-dollar-a-pound commodity from becoming cat food.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Not-So-Ancient Delicacy in a Modern World Economy, July 25, 2007

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy (Hardcover)

In _The Breakfast Club_ from 1985, Molly Ringwald's character brings her lunch to detention, but it isn't the typical brown bag the other kids have brought. It is a tray of sushi, and the rest of them are astonished, maybe because they have never seen such a food before. It is a scene that is now quaintly dated, even after only a couple of decades, because although a Big Mac might still be more the prevalent norm, and although sushi is still something of an exotic food, it is popular rather than mysterious. The way this came to be involves marketing, technology, and a shrinking planet, and is the story of _The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy_ (Gotham Books) by Sasha Issenberg. Sushi is based on raw fish, mostly tuna, but it isn't really fresh and it decidedly is not simple. This is not a book that will make you wince or feel guilty over your next tuna roll, and it may even beat the drums for globalization. We do have, even in small towns, the capacity now to enjoy this tasty delicacy, and as Issenberg writes, "In few places are the complex dynamics of globalization revealed as visibly as in the tuna's journey from the sea to the sushi bar."

The sushi story is the story of tuna, and Issenberg follows the fish backward from market to its origin in the sea. The main market is the Tsukiji which takes up 57 acres in Tokyo, where a few hundred buyers gather to take a look at tuna brought in from all over the world. This is a huge market of $6 billion a year, and one fish alone might routinely go for $30,000. The great change in the market came starting in 1972 when there was a first Tokyo auction of Canadian bluefin tuna, brought by plane from a region where the fish were considered worthless. The tuna, rice, and seaweed delicacy with which we are familiar, Issenberg says, "served by a sushi chef to a customer seated before him - is in fact no older than the California roll," which was itself an American invention of the 1960s. "Sushi had started as a form of preservation," Issenberg writes, "but it was becoming precisely the opposite: a way of using the infrastructure of modernity to chaperone a delicate dish around the world." This has resulted in overfishing, and attempts to farm tuna, "moving the ocean's biggest, fastest, toughest fish into a cage and keeping it there for months or years." Of course aficionados sniff at the quality of farmed tuna meat, but that doesn't matter to those who, say, like a cheap tray of tasty sushi from the supermarket.

There are wonderful profiles in this book, like the Caucasian tuna chef who successfully brought sushi to Austin, Texas, or the self-appointed sheriff of Libyan tuna poaching who uses Google maps to monitor illegal fishing, or the disciples of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon who entered the market in Gloucester, Massachusetts, or the champion tuna tosser at the Port Lincoln Tunarama Festival, or the star of _Iron Chef_ who is opening a sushi restaurant in Mumbai, or many more. Each profile shows how global an enterprise sushi is. Issenberg reflects: "To eat sushi is to display an access to advanced trade networks, of full engagement in world commerce." Sushi is now so prevalent as to be taken for granted; it is good to be reminded of how complex and how modern a story it really is.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The economics of tuna, October 25, 2009

By 

M. Godon - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy (Mass Market Paperback)

I added this one to my to-read list at the same time as The Zen of Fish (by Trevor Corson), and I was a little worried that they'd be redundant, but they weren't really. They had some things in common - the history of sushi and the Tsukiji fish market - but I didn't think they covered too many of the same topics. This book focused a lot more on tuna, and it did discuss the economics of sushi much more. Each chapter discussed a different issue related to sushi: The Tsukiji market and some logistics of sushi, the history of sushi, fisherman in New England, tuna ranching in Australia, a sushi bar owner in Texas, and Nobu Matsuhisa. I would have marked the book much lower if he hadn't discussed the issue of sustainable fishing, but it is covered in depth near the end. Between the two books, I liked this one better. However, it doesn't have a story in the same way that the other did, which may make it a little harder to read for some; your mileage may vary.