On Sushi and Tsukiji

The best sushi I've ever had is at a little hole in the wall in my small Japanese town. It probably tastes different than the $400 a plate stuff, but it would be wasted on me anyhow. Why do I keep going back? Because the sushi chef is a great guy, and chats with me for the whole meal. Favorite topic of conversation: Ultima Online.

His proudest UO accomplishment: GMing in cooking. On fish steaks, naturally.

> two million kilograms of seafood Tsukiji handles every day ... The Fulton Fish Market, in New York City, the second-largest fish market in the world, moves only 115 tons a year, an average of less than half a ton each working day.

These numbers don't make sense to me.

Certainly Tsukiji is bigger than Fulton, but I'm expected to believe that Fulton moves 115 tons per year ... or, what, 500 lbs of fish per day?

I imagine that Fulton moves 115 tons PER DAY, and Tsukiji moves 2,000 tons PER DAY.

Fulton doing 6% of Tsukiji is plausible. Fulton doing 0.02% is not.

"The little guy with the big knife is Tsunenori Iida. He speaks not as an individual but as an emanation, the present voice, of the generations whose blood flows in him and who held the long knife in lifetimes before him, just as he speaks of Masahisa as if he were the same Masahisa who wrought the first samurai sword, in the days of dark mist. Thus it is that he tells me he's been here since 1861, during the Tokugawa shogunate, when this city, Tokyo, was still called Edo."

Reminds me of the metaphor Clay Shirky uses in his "Love, Internet Style" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1TZaElTAs) speech. He talks about the Ise Shinto shrine, which the Japanese claim to be 1300 years old even though the building itself is rebuilt periodically. The Japanese think it is 1300 years old because the function of the shrine has existed for 1300 years, just like the function of this man has been around since 1861, even if he, the mere physical manifestation of this function, has not. Interesting way to think and define oneself.

No talk at all about dwindling fish stocks, high mercury content, and Japan's obvious global destruction of marine ecosystems. I wish people would get real, and try to realize that we're basically raping the ocean. No different than hunting wild Animals in Africa and airlifting them directly to $400 plates...

"Not Hacker News," but I love this article, and it's been in my bookmarks list for a long time. I still haven't been able to spare the $700 for a meal at Masa... but it's on my bucket list.

You can see the whole process of a blue fin tuna's journey Canada's east coast to Tsukiji on the Canada TV show "Chef Aboard" Episode "Bluefin Tuna, Canada to Japan" at http://www.foodtv.ca/video/

You have drill down the menus. I don't get the direct link. Click on "Full Episodes A-E" in the middle bar and then Chef Abroad.

The Aircraft Carrier episode and Tokyo Food Adventure episode are interesting too.

Tsukiji is a great place to go on your first day in Tokyo, given that the action's all in the early morning and you're still jetlagged. I posted a few photos from it and other Tokyo sights after my vacation there last year: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronbrethorst/sets/72157604531...

Just had great sushi in Tsukiji last week. Great article. Thanks for posting.