Telling a 'Fish' story
An almost mystical intensity suffuses Trevor Corson's face as he takes a bite of madai (red sea bream) sushi. He closes his eyes to concentrate. Then he reaches for a curl of toro over vinegared rice. "It's like the cherry blossoms falling," he says, "so transient that you just want to capture that moment."
Corson is the author of "The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, From Samurai to Supermarket," a book about America's embrace of this Japanese specialty. At Oishii Boston, Corson is setting a good eating pace. Sushi master and owner Ting San is creating one small dish after another for Corson, who has tasted the tuna tartare topped with caviar served in a block of glowing pink ice. He's tried Rainier cherries wrapped in a paper thin sea bass, which he says is part of the repertoire of little appetizers that a sushi chef often offers regular customers. Seared toro sandwich in brown rice paper crackers is good, he says, and the slice of abalone atop a shell filled with cuttlefish atop a puddle of mushroom risotto is even better -- as is the scallop over a crisped leaf of Egyptian lettuce. So that Corson can see where Boston fits into the sushi craze, we're beginning the evening at Oishii in the South End, then continuing the sushi crawl at the new O Ya restaurant in the Leather District.
Lithe and athletic-looking, Corson flirts with the waitress as she describes each dish. Then, with San, Corson launches into a discussion of where to get the best tuna and listens intently as the chef promises Kobe beef on hot stones and insists Corson finishes this tasting, called omakase, (chef's choice), with a soup of Chilean sea bass wrapped in a Napa cabbage leaf and submerged in fragrant bonito broth. As Corson tastes the butter-textured beef, his eyes close again : "This comes close to the height of decadence."
Corson's book chronicles the travails of a young California woman who enrolls in the California Sushi Academy in Hermosa Beach, begun by a Japanese chef who had seen a demand for American-trained sushi chefs. Corson follows her as she becomes comfortable with knives and fish blood and learns the intricacies of Japanese traditions transplanted to California's fickle trendiness. And he buttresses the story with explorations about the science of everything from mold to how eels have sex.
It's all to make a point. Popping a bite of golden big eye snapper into his mouth, Corson talks about how sushi got into the American psyche. He glances around the sleekly designed Oishii as tables fill with business types and young couples. There are four chefs working with San early on a Tuesday night -- and they're all busy.
"That's so different than in Japan," Corson says, "where sushi bars don't have tables, or menus, or rolls." Sushi chefs and owners, many of whom are not Japanese, have adapted to an American imperative, he says. The result is another kind of sushi, where young Americans especially gravitate to the showy rolls usually wrapped in "sweet, sugary rice," which, he thinks, make something perceived as exotic easier to approach. Hollywood started the craze in the 1970s, and as always, what the stars found intriguing spread across the country. Corson is especially fascinated with the fact that places like Omaha and Dallas, Des Moines and Memphis sport sushi rivalries now.
His own path to sushi immersion started early. Corson, who was born in Boston and grew up in the Washington area, lived in Japan while he was in high school, and later worked on his master's degree on Eastern religions in a Buddhist temple there. "I had a revelation I did not want to do academic writing," he says. After returning to the United States, he did a stint on a lobster boat off Maine, and then became a magazine writer and editor here. An essay on the crustaceans that ran in The Atlantic Monthly developed into his first book, "The Secret Life of Lobsters." The "Zen" book, says Corson, who is 37, is "my attempt to get back to East Asia via seafood."
Although he's happily devouring Ting San's rarified offerings -- abalone, mountain peaches (like a cross between an olive and a raspberry, the waitress explains), edible gold leaf, three varieties of tuna, two of salmon -- Corson muses on the future of seafood and the sustainability of the sea, worrying that generations to come might not be able to savor this array of sea creatures. It's a question that has bothered him lately. As he heads out in the night, he exchanges bows and handshakes with San and his wife.
O Ya shows Corson's mettle. At first, he demurs, saying he's much too full to eat more. But the imaginative menu sways him, and though he's intrigued by non-sushi offerings such as tea-brined fried pork ribs, peekytoe crab Louis, and seared strip loin with curry chestnut sauce, he settles on grilled sashimi of chanterelles and shiitakes and wild Santa Barbara spot prawn with garlic butter.
"In a way, they're jumping past Oishii to a trendier style," he says, excitedly. Tim and Nancy Cushman opened their restaurant this spring. "They're already getting ahead to the next step," says Corson. "Chez Panisse comes to sushi," he announces.
The contrast between the slightly more traditional Oishii, which opened last year, and the newer O Ya, points to the question of authenticity, he says, which is "kind of up for grabs." He doesn't hold that sushi has to remain fixed on a Japanese style -- and indeed Ting San and his Oishii restaurants push the boundaries.
The basic rule of good sushi isn't exotic or expensive ingredients or even innovation. What's important is the chef's attention, says Corson. "The best sushi will come when the chef gets to know you." 