Japan's Sushi & Seafood

About this book

Sushi is the most famous Japanese food on earth — and the least understood. This book is the complete guide to the system inside it.

200 entries in eight parts, each in one fixed format — Origins & Story, Taste & Technique, Where & When, and Manners & Enjoyment. The forms: narezushi, the fermented ancestor; nigiri born in Edo; pressed, scattered, rolled and battleship sushi; the trout of Toyama in bamboo leaves and the ancient funazushi of Lake Biwa. The fish: sea bream the celebration fish, tuna and toro, bonito first and returning, gizzard shad the Edomae examination, yellowtail's changing names — plus the shellfish, shrimps, crabs, squid and octopus, and the roe, egg and rolls that complete the case. The craft: zuke, shime and kobujime, the willow-leaf knife, rice at skin temperature. The manners and the masters: omakase, oaiso, ginger's true job, the itamae's years of rice. Then the sushi year — Toyosu at dawn, the first-tuna auction, shun and its two shoulders, crab season, fugu under licence — and what comes next.

The 200 entries are items of sushi and seafood culture, not shop reviews: no shop is ranked and no shop's prices or hours are asserted — shops change them; cultures endure. A glossary and an index by part and theme close the book, so you can plan a journey by season and by coast instead of by map alone.

Written and created in Japan by Japanese author Aki Wakamatsu. Published by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, a Japanese publisher in Hokkaido, Japan. Authentic Japanese content, carefully made in Japan — not mass-produced.