The Sushi Economy: Globalisation and the Making of a Modern Delicacy
By Sasha Issenberg
Gotham $26.00, 320 pages

Not so long ago, fresh tuna was next to worthless in most parts of the world. Trophy fishermen who snagged an Atlantic bluefin off the north American coast often had to pay someone to cart it to the town dump. That all changed when, in the early 1970s, a Japanese technician figured out how to preserve and ship tuna from one side of the world to the other. Japan Airlines had long been casting around for goods to transport in planes that were carrying Japanese electronics to all corners of the globe but flying back empty. In 1972, the first “flying fish” was sold at Tokyo’s Tsukiji market and a new global industry was born.