NYT: Meet the star of Sushi-Con: a 400-pound tuna
Photo: Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
“It’s coming! It’s coming!” someone yelled. It was before dawn on a recent Sunday, and a dozen men in matching navy-blue T-shirts were waiting by a loading dock in Manhattan for the headliner of Sushi-Con, which bills itself as the largest expo of Japanese cuisine in the United States.
A truck backed into the brightly lit bay. The rear doors opened and a white Styrofoam box appeared, roughly the shape of a coffin and nearly as wide as the truck itself. Written at one end was the word “head.” Inside was a 399-pound bluefin tuna, a fish that when prepared as sushi can be among the most expensive forms of seafood in the world.
Sangsu Choe, a manager at True World Foods, a wholesaler of sushi-related products and a co-sponsor of the event, began waving his arms and directing. “Take it easy! Don’t rush,” he yelled as the men tried to move the box with a manual forklift. Several times, the white container, now more than six feet in the air, teetered and appeared close to crashing to the ground. Everyone shouted and laid their hands on it to steady it.