The Ultimate in Sustainable Sushi Might Just Be … Chicken

In The Story of Sushi I write about one of the first female sushi chefs to graduate from the California Sushi Academy–Tracy Griffith, actress, singer, and half-sister of Melanie Griffith. Here’s the beginning of the section about Tracy in the book:

A feisty redhead, Tracy had gotten to the point in her film career where she no longer wanted to wear the things the directors wanted her to wear, or say the things they wanted her to say. She saw an ad in Gourmet magazine for the sushi academy and signed up.

Within five minutes of Tracy’s arrival, the Japanese instructor started yelling at her.

‘You should not be here!’ he screamed. He glared at her fingernail polish and her long red hair. ‘You unnatural! No such thing sushi woman!’

He spent the rest of the class trying to intimidate Tracy into quitting. When she returned for the next class he was irate.

‘What did I say?!’ he screamed. ‘What are doing here? You should not be here!’

A big part of the story in my book is about the challenges faced by women in the world of sushi. When I interviewed Tracy about her experiences she looked back on it all with grace and humor, but it hadn’t been easy. She had managed to graduate from the Academy, though, and later worked as a sushi chef and even published a cookbook called Sushi American Style.

Tracy was here in New York yesterday promoting her new line of American-style sushi rolls, carried by Dean & Deluca.

We shared a laugh over the fact that her sushi might be the ultimate in sustainability–at least from the point of view of our overfished oceans. There’s no fish in any of it.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s still sushi. The word “sushi” just refers to the seasoned rice–in Japanese tradition, anything made with seasoned sushi rice can fairly be called sushi. It doesn’t have to include fish.

But whether you could really call Tracy’s chicken, beef, and bacon sushi rolls at Dean & Deluca “sustainable” would, of course, depend on how all that meat is sourced.

The good news is, veggie rolls are real sushi, too.