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SAKANADO - Way of the Fish: The Kajiwara Family & the Secret Art of Japanese Fishcraft
Paperback
Culinary BiographiesJapanese HistoryJapanese Cooking
Publisher Price: $28.00
Publisher: Raziel Press
Published: Jun 20 2026
Pages: 452
Weight: 1.32
Height: 1.01 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
In a Los Angeles wholesale fish market, Hiroko Kajiwara watches a man break down a tuna with a hacksaw. The blade tears through the flesh in rough strokes, crushing the cells, destroying the texture. For Hiroko, a third-generation fishmonger from Kokura, Japan, whose family has been selecting, cutting, and selling fish for nearly a century it is painful to watch.
She has come to America to see the state of its fish. What she finds is a system built on uniformity and convenience, where no one can tell the difference between a transcendent piece of sashimi and a supermarket tray. Where good fish and bad fish are sold at the same price. Where the knowledge that separates the ordinary from the extraordinary simply does not exist.
This is the story of what her family decided to do about it.
Way of the Fish follows the Kajiwara family from the ancient markets of Kokura - a rugged coastal city shaped by three converging seas and centuries of tradition - to the sushi counters and fish markets of Los Angeles, New York, and beyond. In Kokura, we enter a world most Westerners have never seen: pre-dawn auctions where expert eyes appraise every fish individually. Knife work so precise it preserves flavor at the cellular level. A sacred fishmonger-chef relationship built on trust, skill, and generations of shared knowledge. Spiritual rituals at family shrines before the first cut of the day.
At the center of it all is the Kajiwara family - descended from salt-makers and shaped by war, exile, and reinvention - who built one of the most respected fish shops in Kitakyushu. For four generations, their name meant one thing to the region's finest sushi chefs: the best fish, prepared with absolute mastery.
Then they closed the shop. Not as an admission of defeat, but as an act of transformation.
Part One immerses the reader in the Kajiwaras' world: the rhythms of Tanga Ichiba market, the craft of meikiki (the art of seeing quality in a single glance), the philosophy of anbai (the alchemy of flavor), and the quiet dignity of lives devoted entirely to one pursuit. It is a portrait of a Japan that is rapidly disappearing - and a family determined to carry its wisdom forward.
Part Two follows the Kajiwaras as they launch Sushitainable, an ambitious venture to bring authentic Japanese fish quality to American tables. From sourcing pristine fish on remote Goto Island to confronting broken supply chains and a culture that treats fish as a commodity, the family faces the enormous challenge of bridging two worlds. Along the way, they discover something unexpected: Americans are hungry - not just for better fish, but for the knowledge, craft, and philosophy behind it.
Part culinary memoir, part cultural investigation, part manifesto for a better way of eating, Way of the Fish is a story about what happens when people who have spent their lives doing one thing extraordinarily well decide to share that knowledge with the rest of the world.
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