Thinking Sushi — And How It's Changed.
A little history, a few sushi masters — and a rare type of soy sauce.
Had a spectacular meal at Morihiro in Atwater this week, and the calm restaurant with the beautiful ceramics (made by the chef himself), reminded me of some of the early sushi restaurants I visited in Los Angeles.
I first encountered Imai-san at Tokyo Kaikan in the early seventies; the review I wrote for New West, below, is from the time he was working in Gardena. He ultimately opened his own little shop on First Street, near the Los Angeles Times, and I went as often as I could afford it. Every time I visited him I learned something new.
My other favorite sushi bar was Katsu, on Hillhurst Avenue, which I wrote about here. Reading these old reviews I’m reminded of how much our tastes have changed. In those days sushi was more than merely something to eat. It was a ritual, a window into the mysteries of Japanese culture. It was also, of course, far more affordable before we gobbled up most of the wild fish that once swam through the oceans. And that too is another huge change: sushi used to rely on wild-caught fish, but as the supply dwindles the fish we are eating — even large ones like tuna — are increasingly coming from fish farms.
That, of course, is another story.
My friend Bruce — the same one who introduced me to Imai — has just given me access to his extraordinary trove of Los Angeles menus from the first half of the twentieth century. There are files on everything from Chinese restaurants, drive-ins, hamburger palaces, drugstores, airline food…. I’m having so much fun. But although I pawed through hundreds, I could not find a single menu offering Japanese food. Even the Miyako Hotel featured Chinese and American fare.
But here’s a menu from The Forbidden Palace, just to whet your appetite. Many more to come in the next few weeks. And please, if anybody knows what “Chicago Fried Rice” is, let me know!
When I have a few free moments nothing gives me more pleasure than looking through the online catalog of Corti Brothers in Sacramento. The site is always filled with new and wonderful things to eat.
In the early seventies, when I moved to California, people in need of truffles, great olive oil, or the best Parmigiano, invariably called Darrell Corti who would send it off to them on a Greyhound bus. Darell was selling balsamic vinegar before anyone else in America had even heard of it, and collecting California wines before most people understood how good they could be. I still think he knows more about food and wine than anyone else in the country.
I bring this up because Darrell was importing artisan soy sauces from Japan when most of us were relying on La Choy. He always has an interesting array; at the moment I’m attracted to this double-fermented Mitsuboshi Saishikome, which has been made by the same family since the 1870s.
I wrote a long two-part article about Japanese food in America a couple years ago. There was a lot of it. I put the article on Substack recently. It's called the Great Sushi Craze of 1905.
https://eccentricculinary.substack.com/p/the-great-sushi-craze-of-1905-part?s=w
The main take away was that there were a lot of Japanese restaurants in America before WWII, all over the West Coast, of course, but also in places like Houston, Minneapolis and New York. There was even one in Tombstone Arizona in the 1880s.
I often think of your description in your memoir of trying sushi for the first time in NYC!