In recent years, Tokyo has become a gastronomical mecca, harvesting more Michelin stars than any other city, including Paris. But few people are acquainted with the complex supply chain that delivers the dainty morsels to their plates.
Naoto Nakamura is a writer, part-time janitor and jazz fan who’s been involved with the Japanese fish industry since the late seventies. His self-published memoir – with its tales of fistfights, drug-induced paranoia, accounting scams and strip-clubs in the middle of nowhere – is far removed from the refined image that Japanese cuisine has come to project.
Nakamura has gutted king salmon in an eskimo village in the Yukon and worked on a barge with Marlon Brando’s ill-fated son, Christian. He has marinated cuttlefish in Dalian, sorted shishamo (“capelin”) in the muddy wastes of Newfoundland, sailed on a Russian factory ship and guided foreign tourists around the Tsukiji Fish Market (“like dealing with kindergarten children.”)
According to Nakamura, people in the fish business lack the budget for gourmandising so usually favour “ordinary places to eat out.” In the interests of research he visited the celebrated Sukiyabashi Jiro, recipient of three Michelin stars. The man behind the counter preparing his food was the god-like Jiro Ono, creator of the Jiro-nigiri sushi style.
Nakamura’s honest verdict? “Is it worth it? I regret to say it’s not.… I admit there was an exciting part to dining there, but the excitement might have been because I paid so much money. At a high-class sushi restaurant you are ready to get excited, so you get excited.”
Instead, Nakamura prefers the “wild” charm of Daiwa Sushi, a modest eatery located inside his beloved Tsukiji Fish Market.
In literary terms, Free Jazz at the Tsukiji Fish Market is closer to Daiwa Sushi than Sukiyabashi Jiro. But if you’re interested in the rich culture of Japan’s world of fish, if you want to know whether ketsu-agari (“flipped-up ass”) is a good thing or bad thing in a tuna, if you want to learn how to spot a gaseous female shishamo whose stomach might rupture and scatter roe everywhere, then let Naoto Nakamura be your guide.
He has the back-story of what’s at the end of your chopsticks.