[.uk] Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World ... (ISBN 0520220242)

This book is not just about fish:
"If a maritime species can be consumed by human beings, in Japan, it almost certainly has been," writes Harvard anthropologist and sushi aficionado Theodore Bestor. And the place to get it is Tsukiji at the mouth of the Sumida River in Tokyo, the world's biggest fish market, where millions of pounds of fish a day and billions of dollars worth of seafood a year are received, sold (usually more than once) and shipped. That's about five times bigger than New York's (lately extinct) Fulton Fish Market. Although Tsukiji controls only a tenth of Japan's seafood business, the Japanese are so devoted to seafood and have so much money that fisheries around the world operate on Tsukiji's beat. New fisheries have been created just for Tsukiji, like the air-flown fresh Atlantic bluefin tuna business. Tuna is king at Tsukiji, to the point that conservationists fear the extinction of the Atlantic bluefin. Bestor's "Tsukiji" is comprehensive, neatly fitting the market into both historical and present-day contexts, but his main interest is in what he calls intermediate wholesalers. There are about 1,600 of them, narrowly specialized. They are proud of their alleged origin as supporters of the first ruling Shogun in Edo (now Tokyo), of their knowledge of fish (but, of course, the younger generation doesn't know what the old-timers think they should), of their hometowns, their high schools, their religious sodalities, family ties, festivals and staying power. Staying power especially. Some dealers claim to be of the 17th generation. Tsukiji was the famous fish market of Nihonbashi until the Great Kanto earthquake destroyed it in 1923. Rebuilt in a new location, Tsukiji seems to have carried its history along with it successfully. It is facing an uncertain future again, as usual, says Bestor. The challenges come from the market structure, which is shifting from auctions to direct, negotiated deals. And from the municipal government, which wants to move the cramped, decaying market. It's within walking distance of Ginza, and many dealers worry that moving away will kill the market. It will almost certainly kill the "outer" market of little stalls and restaurants that congregates around the inner market. (Bestor provides a guide for tourists.) All markets have, to anthropologists, a certain sameness, but Tsukiji has some uniquely Japanese features. Sakidori is the oddest, compared with American methods. The auctions begin around 5 a.m., too late for supermarket chains that have to wrestle their purchases through Tokyo's traffic and also need extra time to clean, cut, wrap and price packages. Smaller local shops don't need so much lead time. Sakidori allows the big guys to carry off whatever they want before the auction, which gives them an advantage in obtaining the best quality items. But the price is set by the smaller guys who stay later. Another obvious difference between Tsukiji and American markets is the place of religious rites at Tsukiji. Japanese fishmongers may not be any more religious than American businessmen, but they are more likely to organize business matters in religious contexts, from parading at festivals to going as business groups to famous shrines. Bestor has attempted to write a book for both academic anthropologists and for general readers, and cheerfully invites the general reader to skip some chapters. It's worth the effort of reading it all. This book is not just about fish.

Perfect Guide to a Tokyo Vacation:
A fishing boat leaves from Barnegat Light, New Jersey headed out for a week or more of long-line fishing for swordfish, but two days later, it's back at the dock meeting a refrigerated truck. What happened? Was their trip cut short by mechanical failure? Bad ice? No, they caught a giant bluefin tuna as a `bycatch' and a buyer in Tokyo, notified by radio, sent a truck t o pick it up and get it on the next plane to Japan. At the heart of all this remarkable transport is the soon-to-be closed Tsukiji, a giant market next to the posh Ginza and tacky Shinbashi neighborhoods that currently handles ten per cent of the world's trade in fresh fish. As a piece of social history, this book would be fascinating and for the anthropologist concerned with community and institution, it's a milestone. But that's not why I am recommonding this book so highly. I urge you to buy it because it's the key to a particular kind of travel. If you are going to Tokyo, there is a guidebook and a list of recommended sights. You can even go on a tour and have someone decide what you should see. Or you can take the time to get familiar with Tsukiji before you leave. You can spend your mornings (it opens before dawn and is closed just after noon) wandering the inner and outer market. You can have the freshest, cheapest sushi you've ever tasted and shop for sushi knives and other cutlery. You can speak not a single word of Japanese and have the time of your life. Better yet, if you do this, it will change the way you travel forever. You will no longer be content to see what you've imagined seeing and what all your friends have seen. In fact, the whole idea of `seeing' a city will change. You'll want to taste it, hear it, smell it and wake up with it too. This splendid book is nicely written, Bestor has a good touch with words, a quality not common among anthropologists. There is also a visitors' guide to the outer market. So whether your traveliing is ocean-spanning or armchair-sprawling, Tsukiji is a delight. --Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and the forthcoming novel bang-BANG from Kunati Books. ISBN 9781601640005

Detailed book on a fascinating subject:
I've never seen the Tsukiji fish market in operation, but I'm quite sure that it's fascinating, and one of the best reasons I have for thinking that is this big and detailed book. Theodore Bestor is a professor of anthropology at Harvard, but unlike a stereotypical anthropologist, he doesn't study fossils or primitive tribes. He studies contemporary Japanese economic institutions. The book is a serious work of academic scholarship but, happily, it's only a little less readable for that. Professor Bestor descends into opaque academic jargon only once and then pretty briefly. (It rather feels as though he does it once just to prove that he can.) Other that that brief bit, there's only a smattering of academic jargon in the book and most of it is perfectly understandable. Professor Bestor is occasionally a bit repetitive, and there are a few inelegant chapter introductions and summaries ("In this chapter I have..."), but there's very little here that hinders an interested lay-person's enjoyment. Besides, who but an academic would spend 15 years visiting and learning about a fish market? Anyone who has an interest in Japanese culture should be glad that Professor Bestor did because there's a lot to learn from reading the book. Professor Bestor explains the market's history, its seventeenth-century origin in nearby Nihonbashi, its move to Tsukiji in 1923, its move into the current buildings in 1935, its closure during the second world war, its resurgence in the 1950s, and its likely future move to a new location across the Sumida river. In equally careful detail, he tells us about the market's mechanisms and its participants: the auctions and the seven auction-houses, the hundreds of wholesalers and how they do business, how the market changes in anticipation and reaction to consumers' changing preferences, and so on. There's no question that there are a lot of interesting facts here. I'd never have guessed that sushi as we know it was invented in the middle of the nineteenth century. But, perhaps not surprisingly, Professor Bestor is at his best when he's interpreting and analyzing as an anthropologist. Economic transactions don't happen in a vacuum. We get a wonderfully clear picture of the numerous overlapping formal and informal relationships among the market's participants and between them and the various parts of local and national government that license and regulate the market. We also get to see wholesalers changing their businesses, not just in response to short-term market changes, but also in response to larger-scale economic trends. While they were once exclusively family businesses, many are now becoming increasingly like ordinary corporations. Japanese social structures are famously opaque to outsiders and Professor Bestor has done a fabulous job learning about and explaining a fascinating place. And his descriptions are good enough that you can almost smell the fish. There's also a useful guide to to visiting the market at the end of the book.

Fascinating read:
A truly fascinating book about the social, commercial, spoken and unspoken interactions that take place within this complex network of one of the world's largest fish markets. I read this book in the context of an anthropology class, but I think this book would also be an enjoyable (though not exactly light) read, for anyone who likes having an in-depth, anthropological look into a place where everything happens rapidly, and where fish can become a basis of an economy and culture.

Fast delivery!:
I was pleasantly surprised at how fast this book was shipped to me!! The book arrived in great condition & i am very pleased with the transaction...