How to Eat Sushi: A Book Report

I really enjoyed reading Fuchsia Dunlop's Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper recently - an autobiography where Fuchsia tells of her culinary and cultural travels over a decade or so in many of China's provinces.  So if you like one book and you want to find another one that is similar, what do you do?  I'm sure there is some sort of fancy web-based software or algorithm, but I went the old fashioned route.  I called a librarian.

See, I've been really digging the downtown public library lately - they have an amazing collection of cookbooks, and of course, much, much more.  So, now I have a couple of autobiographical food-related books on India due to some clever catalog search tools by said librarian.  And yet, my most recent book, Zen of Sushi, I found the old fashioned way - browsing the meager shelves at the Northside branch around the corner from my house.

Zen of Sushi follows a group of students at the California Sushi Academy in Los Angeles as they go through a 12 week course, and along the way you learn everything from the science to the art of sushi.  There are a whole lot of learnings in this book, but here's some quick, simple things I gleaned that I bet you might be interested in if you ever go out for sushi:

- don't rub your chopsticks together to get rid of the splinters, its considered rude
- eat at the bar so you can get to know your sushi chef, and they can get to know you
- order "omakase," putting it in the chef's hands to choose the best, freshest options for you
- it's typical to eat nigiri (rice with something - usually fish - on top of it) by picking it up with your hand - the rice may fall apart if picked up with chopsticks, but sashimi is picked up with chopsticks
- disposable wooden chopsticks are horrible for the environment, take your own or ask if they have plastic ones you can use
- miso soup comes last, not first
- dip your fish in the soy sauce, not the rice, and don't put ginger in the soy sauce
- crisp nori is prized, so if you aren't sitting at the bar don't order a typical roll because by the time it gets to you the nori will already be too moist
- ginger is for cleansing your palette between fish, not an appetizer
- eel sauce is sweet and tasty, and it's made with eel brains
- if you're interested in more of this basic etiquette, stop in at the library and read the appendix of this book - it'll take you 5 minutes

Got any food-related book suggestions?

Check out Ruth Reichl: Food with a Side of Politics

I've been stuck in one behemoth of non-fiction after the next for the last several months.  Every time I tried to claw my way out I got stuck again for some reason.  So, when I picked up Ruth Reichl's Tender on the Bone looking for an easy read on staycation a few weeks back, it was truly a breath of fresh air.  Astute readers might have noticed me dropping Reichl ideas and quotes in other posts.

There probably won't be a lot of book recommendations or reviews here on Amateur Foodies, but since I did just read 3 food books in 3 weeks, it seemed silly not to mention it.  Comfort Me with Apples is the follow up to Tender on the Bone, and while Garlic and Sapphires has a bit of different flow to it, itis essentially the next book in a series.

I'd say this quote from Comfort Me with Apples epitomizes what I most enjoyed about the trio:

Ruth:  "I may write about the life of leisure...but I don't live it.  And I'll have you know that the hospitality industry is America's largest employer."
Michael (soon to be husband): "How silly of me not to have known that you had a serious political mission."

And there you get a little window into my world.  I doubt the average reader enjoys Reichl because of her politics, but I bet a lot of people can relate to her search for finding what she loves and battling some moral questions along the way.

All three books are light reads, but they all evoke a range of emotions, and of course whet your appetite.  I'd recommend them to about anyone, but to a food lover especially, and even more so to someone who is trying to figure out how politically correct it is to pay $50-100 for a dinner with all the struggle in the world.

Have you read any good books lately that have food as a main component?  I've really enjoyed the non-cookbook parts of Momofuku's cookbook - David Chang's stories are quite interesting.  Anything of that sort you'd recommend?