Around the corner from my office in New York stands a string of sushi restaurants. At lunchtime most days they are packed with professionals, gobbling down cold lumps of toro (tuna belly), hamachi (yellowfin tuna) or ebi (prawn). So far, so unremarkable. But reflect, for a minute, on all that raw fish. A generation ago, the idea of American office workers munching cheerfully on uncooked tuna would have been almost laughable. After all, the USA was the land of (cooked) steak and fries; sandwiches and hamburgers were the norm for lunch. Many Americans had only the haziest idea of what the Japanese actually ate; and there were few sushi restaurants to be found, even in cities such as New York.
在我紐約辦公室的街角周圍，開著好幾家壽司店。大多數日子的午餐時分，店裏都擠滿了上班族，狼吞虎嚥地喫著各種壽司，比如tolo（金槍魚腹肉）、油甘魚（黃鰭金槍魚腹肉）或海老（蝦）。咋看上去，一切似乎都很平常。但細想一下吧：所有這些可都是生魚。大約二三十年前，若有人說美國上班族會高高興興地嚼著生金槍魚肉，簡直就像是一個笑話。畢竟，美利堅合衆國是（熟）牛排和炸薯條的國度，三明治和漢堡纔是標準的午餐。對於日本人喫什麼的問題，許多美國人幾乎都沒有什麼概念；即使在紐約這樣的大城市，也幾乎找不到幾家壽司店。