Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the WorldLocated only blocks from Tokyo's glittering Ginza, Tsukiji—the world's largest marketplace for seafood—is a prominent landmark, well known but little understood by most Tokyoites: a supplier for countless fishmongers and sushi chefs, and a popular and fascinating destination for foreign tourists. Early every morning, the worlds of hi-tech and pre-tech trade noisily converge as tens of thousands of tons of seafood from every ocean of the world quickly change hands in Tsukiji's auctions and in the marketplace's hundreds of tiny stalls. In this absorbing firsthand study, Theodore C. Bestor—who has spent a dozen years doing fieldwork at fish markets and fishing ports in Japan, North America, Korea, and Europe—explains the complex social institutions that organize Tsukiji's auctions and the supply lines leading to and from them and illuminates trends of Japan's economic growth, changes in distribution and consumption, and the increasing globalization of the seafood trade. As he brings to life the sights and sounds of the marketplace, he reveals Tsukiji's rich internal culture, its place in Japanese cuisine, and the mercantile traditions that have shaped the marketplace since the early seventeenth century. |
Contents
1 Tokyos Pantry | 1 |
2 Grooved Channels | 50 |
3 From Landfill to Marketplace | 91 |
4 The Raw and the Cooked | 126 |
5 Visible Hands | 177 |
6 Family Firm | 214 |
7 Trading Places | 245 |
8 Full Circle | 295 |
Appendix One Visiting Tsukiji | 313 |
Appendix Two Video Web and Statistical Resources | 321 |
Glossary | 325 |
Notes | 335 |
| 361 | |
| 385 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Andö apprentice aquaculture auction houses auction pits bidding blocks buyers central wholesale markets chaya commodities competitive complex consumers consumption corporate culinary customers day’s distribution dozen economic Edo’s festival Figure firms fish market fisheries fishing industry fishmongers food culture foodstuffs foreign frozen tuna Ginza groups gyökai gyösha institutions intermediate wholesalers Japan Japanese cuisine kamaboko keiretsu licenses live fish lottery major market system Maruha merchants Namiyoke Shrine Nihonbashi nomic Oishinbo operations organization outer market outer marketplace percent political purchases region relationships restaurants restaurateurs retail roughly salers sashimi seafood season sell Shinbashi Station shitamachi shögunate shops shrimp shrine small-scale social stalls structure Suisan Sumida River supermarkets suppliers supply sushi sushi chefs tion Tö-Oroshi Tokugawa Tokugawa period Tökyö-to ton’ya Toyosu transactions Tsukiji marketplace Tsukiji traders Tsukiji’s auctions Tsukudajima tuna dealer Uogashi Urayasu vertical whaling workers Year’s