Free The Story of Sushi by Trevor Corson

didn’t know what to make of her. Most of them simply fell in love.
    In Denmark, Fie had performed her first major film role by the age of 13, and at 16 she’d been recruited by four different modeling agencies. But Fie chose to work in her stepfather’s takeout sushi shop.
    During the Japanese economic bubble of the 1980s, Japanese restaurants had proliferated in Europe. In Paris, for example, Japanese businessmen took their French counterparts out for sushi, and the meal developed a following. In 1984, even conveyor-belt sushi appeared in Paris.
    When Japan’s bubble burst, many of these restaurants closed. But in 1991 in London, a sushi chef opened a takeout counter called Noto Sushi. It quickly caught the attention of Harrods department store. Harrods began selling Noto Sushi takeout boxes in 1993, and installed a Noto Sushi counter in the store the next year. In the ensuing years, sushi spread throughout Europe’s most cosmopolitan cities. Conveyor-belt sushi restaurants were especially popular.
    Fie’s stepfather traveled frequently and saw sushi everywhere. He opened the first sushi shop in Fie’s hometown of Aarhus, in Denmark. Fie worked there throughout her high school years. The shop was full of books on Japanese culture, food, and Buddhism, and Fie read voraciously. She took a class on Asian religion.
    At 19 she traveled to Asia and ate her way across Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. She returned to Europe, attended cooking school in Denmark, and saved her money. In Europe, sushi continued to soar in popularity. When Fie felt ready, she flew 5,600 miles to L.A. and spent her savings at the California Sushi Academy.
    She quickly attracted attention in Hermosa Beach. Luke Walton, forward for the L.A. Lakers—and son of the NBA’s great Bill Walton—saw her at a yoga class and asked her out. She turned him down.
    After Fie graduated, Toshi let her stay and continue her training behind the sushi bar at Hama Hermosa. Fie had a different problem from the women who’d preceded her. The Japanese chefs bent over backwards to compliment her and help her out. Customers adored her. Sometimes Fie couldn’t tell if the sushi she was making was good, or if everyone was just being nice to her because she was beautiful.
    The night before the party at Paramount Pictures, a bigmouthed Caucasian man came to Hama Hermosa for dinner. He sat at the bar, near Fie, and drank sake and ate. One of the staff asked the man how he’d liked his meal.
    “Well, actually,” he boomed, drowning out the music on the sound system, “I don’t like women chefs. I want a Japanese man to serve my sushi.”
     
    It was just as well that Kate hadn’t been hanging around the restaurant that night. She was having enough trouble in class, feeling like the flaky girl who couldn’t do anything right. She’d always been a tomboy, but at sushi school her male classmates were leaving her way behind. Zoran was still babying her. It had become clear that he held her to a lower standard than the rest of the class.
    To keep up her spirits, Kate had been doodling love hearts in her notebook. Zoran saw them and laughed at her.

9
HOLLYWOOD SHOWDOWN
    O n the morning of the Hollywood party at Paramount Pictures, Toshi arrived at the restaurant well ahead of his staff. By 10:00 a.m. he was hard at work in the kitchen. The party would begin in eight hours.
    Toshi stood at a stainless-steel table that would look at home in a morgue. The table was 12 feet long and ran diagonally across the kitchen. On its surface was a cutting board of high-density polyethylene, chemically fused to repel bacteria, fat, and blood, but soft enough that Toshi could wield his high-carbon blade for several hours without dulling its razor-sharp edge.
    Toshi bent over a big block of blood-red flesh. When sushi first became popular in the early 1800s, a high-class chef like Toshi would have been run out of town for serving tuna. The bloody meat of fresh tuna and other red-fleshed