Very dishy, the insider tome from North Korean despot Kim Jong Il's former sushi-meister. This WaPo article, here via the SF Chron, has tasty tidbits galore. Such as:

For North Korea's ruler, Kim Jong Il, the latest tell-all book on the shelves in Japan is the rawest of betrayals: the confessions of the Dear Leader's own sushi chef.

Lured to Pyongyang from the sushi bars of Tokyo in 1982 by a Japanese trading company and a $5,000-a-month contract, the 56-year-old Japanese chef caught the eye of Kim Jong Il a few years later and for more than a decade catered to Kim's exotic tastes.

Today, he is back in Japan, and under his pen name, Kenji Fujimoto, he wrote a best-selling memoir, 'I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook.' While North Korea is dependent on international food aid so that millions of its people do not starve, Fujimoto described Kim -- a despot to some, demigod to others -- as a sushi chef's dream: the ultimate gourmand.

'He particularly enjoyed sashimi so fresh that he could start eating the fish as its mouth is still gasping and the tail is still thrashing,' Fujimoto said. 'I sliced the fish so as not to puncture any of its vital organs, so of course it was still moving. Kim Jong Il was delighted. He would eat it with gusto.'

...Fujimoto tells of an episode in 1994 -- the year Kim became head of state after the death of his father, Kim Il Sung -- when he was invited to attend one of Kim's notorious 'pleasure parties.' Holding court while sporting his trademark bouffant hair and chunk heels, Kim beamed with excitement as his top aides boogied to American dance music with shocked young women who had been ordered by Kim to strip naked. There were strobe lights and a disco ball hanging that evening from the ceiling of the Dear Leader's lavish Sincheon guesthouse south of Pyongyang.

'Kim Jong Il told the women to take off their clothes,' Fujimoto said. Kim pointed at senior aides one by one, commanding them to dance. "You can dance, but don't touch. If you touch, you are thieves," Kim told the aides, according to Fujimoto.

'Mr. Kim himself would not dance,' Fujimoto said. 'Kim Jong Il liked to watch.' Fujimoto said he was dazzled by Kim's huge liquor cellar, stocked with nearly 10,000 bottles. There was Johnnie Walker Swing scotch and Hennessy XO cognac. To satisfy the Dear Leader's demanding tastes, Fujimoto was sent on international shopping trips, hauling back winter melons from China, pork from Denmark, caviar from Iran and Uzbekistan, but especially the finest sushi from Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, the largest in the world.

Fujimoto said Kim had once dispatched him to Tokyo's upscale Mitsukoshi department store to pick up $100 worth of his favorite rice cakes filled with mugwort yup. The trip itself, including airfare through Beijing -- there are no direct flights between Tokyo and Pyongyang -- and hotel expenses, cost roughly $1,500.

Chauncey Gardener meets Odai Hussein.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at March 17, 2004 08:04 PM

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