washingtonpost.com:
The Dear Leader, On a Platter
Sushi Chef's Book Details Kim Jong Il's Many Purported Indulgences
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A11
TOKYO -- 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, 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 agreed to be interviewed in a central Japanese town on the condition that the location not be disclosed. He said he still fears North Korean spies are on his trail because the end of his tenure in Pyongyang was not mutually agreed upon. The burly cook won permission to leave Pyongyang, he said, after telling Kim a fish tale about heading off to stock the palace larders with fresh Japanese sea urchin for a tasty new dish.
