The Art of Sushi • 2021 • Graphic Documentary by Franckie Alarcon

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The author flies to Japan on a gourmet quest to discover everything there is to know about sushi. Starting with the basics, he visits Mizutani, a famous, Michelin-awarded chef who serves it the traditional way. There is much to learn already in those first few pages. I didn’t know that it is perfectly acceptable to just use my fingers to eat sushi. All those forms, all the different fishes and fish-parts! 

As you can see, this documentary isn’t narrated as a full text, but in the form of a beautifully drawn graphic novel. 

The next day, they follow the chef to a huge fish-market in Tokyo. I’ve learned much about a rapid slaughter technique Ikejime which is very important for preserving fish quality and also as a humanistic way for treating fish. The reader literally watches a tuna cut to pieces using huge Samurai blades.

Sushi isn’t only about the fish, but also and mostly about the rice. Later on, the author will visit a rice farm and get to know about it. Before that, he visits Okada, a young chef who breaks the old sushi tradition – he serves for example Octopus Sashimi, pressed anchovy sushi, or grilled Shellfish. Directly after that visit, they get out of bed at 3a.m. and enter a fisher boat.

There are many other places they visit in those 165 pages. Of course, there’s the Sake brewery, soya sauce makers, but also a ceramicist producing the sake cups, an eel fisher, a nori (the seaweed surrounding Sushi) farm, and a restaurant with running-sushi. 

This book is comes exactly at the right time as a last-minute Christmas gift! It’s informative and fun to read.

Meta: isbn 9781681122854. Published at 14.12.2021 by NBM Publishing.