Confessions of a White Sushi Chef

I think so. Preparing rice properly is not easy. Most of the time it's not done well, even in Japan.

> The way sushi chefs talk about sushi makes it sound like there's some sort of massive, order-of-magnitude difference between them and the "sushi men".

The way hackers talk about code makes it sound like there's some sort of massive, order-of-magnitude difference between them and some guy who started making web sites with Wordpress a couple years ago.

Having sushi prepared by a man who knows the names and favors of hundreds of different kinds of fish by heart, who knows exactly what time of year they're best, how to perfectly cut and season them, what temperature each needs to be served at, who has access to buy the best of the best and who won't accept any compromise on the rice is objectively different.

I also love the cheap junk food rolls. The ones that come with a generous amount of spicy mayo, tempura flakes and all that... but how much skill does it really take to prepare that? Deep fried stuff and favored mayo makes anything taste good.

It's like the difference between a cigarette and a cigar. Sure, they're both tobacco, and maybe the cigar is overpriced, but they're objectively not the same experience.

I just came back from Tokyo where I visited several highly regarded sushi restaurants. Rice and especially the temperature for which it's served is highly important. I ate a chirashi bowl and while the fish on top was excellent, I was actually more impressed with the rice. I also like how there's that perfect balance. The chef makes a piece of nigiri and you put it in your mouth. No need for extra soy sauce or wasabi. The fish melts in your mouth. On one day, I went to an excellent restaurant for sushi at lunch and didn't have plans for dinner so I stopped into a kaiten (conveyer belt) sushi place. I left after eating 2 plates (4 pieces). I had eaten at this kaizen place before and enjoyed it but after having a great experience for lunch, I just couldn't do it.

The biggest difference between sushi joints is quality of fish. Everywhere in Japan can get fresh fish daily. The best I've had outside Japan was in Tenerife at the fish market in Santa Cruz. A lot of foreign places skimp because they don't care and neither do their customers. In Japan you wouldn't want to be known as "the guy who makes crappy sushi".

In the same vein, does the Japanese tea ceremony produce objectively better tea? Probably not, but it's a ritual.

It's tutelage and discipline. Someone who hasn't worked in a busy kitchen wouldn't understand how much mental/physical discipline is required. "Paying your dues" is pretty common, around the world.

Given that the competition for a good sushi place is much tougher and they have a long standing history of this, of course sushi in Japan will be better. It doesn't say anything about whether or not these rituals and power structures are important, though.

Probably not. With a proper training schedule and applying basic engineering/scientific approach, I doubt it would take much time to learn to wash rice to its proper starchness needed for sushi.

But when you are buying sushi you are buying a ritual. Not food. So your chef must have washed rice for 3 years to make it real ...

It amazes me how the Japanese are so good at extracting value and price premium for everything that is related to their way of life.

For an example that will be close to the HN readership, to a freshly graduated Harvard MBA and former McKinsey consultant with a BA in Economics, a self-taught full stack web developer with a couple years experience is for all intents and purposes the same in skills as an MIT post-doc in computer science with a few papers published (I've also met some "business" folks who think the web dev is "superior" because he "gets things done" and his output is "prettier").

I personally think that one should achieve depth in at least one field to appreciate just how hard it is to get to the top of it. As a former classical musician, I can absolutely tell the difference between a good pianist such as you might find playing on a typical night at the Lincoln Centre in New York, and a "once in a generation" pianist such as Richter; this came at the cost of perhaps 2 decades of purposeful study and practicing the art. But my friends with little experience of classical music do not get quite as excited about Richter.

The Japanese are also unique due to the history of their country shaping their philosophy of art (which I will try to summarize based on my very limited understanding - I'd love to be corrected by more knowledgeable readers).

The Heian-period aristocrats, who looked up to the mainland Chinese civilisation, became so decadent and self-focused in their seeking of ever increasing sophistication that they completely lost interest in the running of their own country and the resulting chaos led to the rise of warlords (Daimyo) and a ruling military elite structure based in many parts on fighting ability (this is not unique to Japan: "may they eat cake!").

The Heian period marked spirits (exiling someone from court for having composed a distasteful poem or wearing a slightly mismatched ensemble being, generally, not a good governance principle). So when the Daimyo stopped fighting each other, united under the Tokugawa shogunate, thus having more time to do things other than get good at fighting [1], they sought to display status in other less flashy ways (this did happen later - cf the Rinpa school of painting), a form of counter-signalling based on taste rather than wealth, such as the very materially simple tea ceremony and teahouse. In other words, it's not about the tea, but about the way it is served and the contextual notes. This was helped by the idea that Spartans make better warriors than hedonists.

On top of this and perhaps linked ("dying a good warrior death young, is more honorable and valuable than dying old in your bed having not fought"), the philosophy of art tends towards valuing things like the "ephemeral nature of life" and making very subtle statements related to it. For example, there is a phenomenon in Japan of "the first tuna catch of the year" which is a very expensive and prized fish, almost a celebration. But for you, that's just a slice of tuna, and chemically, it might just be the very same composition as much of the tuna on offer the rest of the year. It would be missing the point - it is the act of catching the first tuna of the year (or it might be the first tuna caught after they come back from a migration where they get fat or something - it's seasonal, I can't remember the details), and the eating of that tuna at that particular time, that is valued by the consumer. Similarly, the rice is designed to be served at a specific temperature, and to "just" hold together at that temperature and with that mix and at that amount of time after being hand shaped for you, and an experienced consumer will appreciate the texture and cooking level of the rice and be satisfied to have had the experience of that precise moment in time and the ephemeral nature of it, much more than by any feeling of satiety.

Now personally I am happy eating the sushi at the standing sushi stand at Tokyo Station in B1 of the Yaesu exit (Uogashi?). That's as good as I can tell the difference and the cheapest I know (around $10-20 a go). So, I'll probably never fork out $400 for Jiro, because I know that's where my limit lies and I couldn't appreciate the conversation anyway (which is a great part of the experience, and why Jiro proper doesn't allow non-Japanese speakers to book). But that's also because I do not wish to invest time and effort into getting to a knowledge level where I could truly appreciate Jiro. I'm also avoiding attending any No theatre performances because, again, have no desire to spend years studying the art.

In other words, it's good to decide whether or not you want to gain depth in a field; if so, time to put in serious effort and do much reading; if not, one should (in my opinion) be aware of one's limits and unknown unknowns and not worry too much about not appreciating said field. But there is absolutely an objective level of difference between the top performers and the middling ones in all fields, even if outsiders cannot perceive it instinctively.

[1] As an example of the discussions of the transition period: 47 of a few hundred samurai that saw their master being betrayed and killed plotted revenge for two years, then executed it (google "47 Ronin", if you didn't see the Keanu movie). In the Hagakure, Tsunetomo criticizes the 47 Ronin for not having immediately committed seppuku, which even if not achieving revenge, would have been the honorable thing to do, instead of deciding to live. Tsunetomo was in turn criticized as being too much of a typical peacetime warrior, choosing honour and appearances over winning, in contrast to a Miyamoto Musashi whose methods were not always clean (such as arriving late to his duels to put the adversary off balance) allowing him a legendary record of victories. Or indeed Ieyasu Tokugawa himself.

When I was 14 I had a smart European teacher, who was into zen buddhism. He told of how people were beaten with sticks when they meditated to improve focus or posture or whatever.

What we can definitely say is sushi has become american standard and that without Japanese chefs, quality sushi would not always be available. Something I think about is sports. Winning doesnt always involve fun, sometimes its discipline, practicing endlessly and ensuring each member plays their part properly instead of give excuses and act solo.

Is hazing the problem? Or is not seeing hazings place in the world? Do we hate discipline ir just discipline at extremes? Why do we hit dogs to stop them from pooping inside and give them treets for listening to a name? I think there is grey area

Obviously there's some flame wars going on in Japanese media about this, but one interesting point that has risen out of this is that the most difficult aspect of running a sushi restaurant isn't necessarily the skill of slapping fish on rice, but the ability to source your ingredients and judge its quality at the market every morning (I imagine "relationships with the vendor" matters as well).

Lastly, my friend who lives in Kyoto had an interesting perspective -- that without the "marketing narrative" of the decades of training going into creating quality sushi, they wouldn't be able to command such exorbitant prices as an industry and thus the myth is tantamount to the ongoing success of the trade.

"It's all bullshit. It's oil on canvas. Some people make really great oil on canvas and the majority of them happen to be (white, I guess), because (I'm not sure, probably eurocentrism). Let's stop trying to make it seem like magic, though. This is just painting hipsterism."

That being said, I'm not a fan of sushi either and I find most of the fuss people make about it quite superficial (much like people make a fuss about yoga). Yet I'd still assume that it a form of art is at its core and that lot of masters do practice it as an art.

Actually the majority of them are Chinese or Korean (outside of Japan at least).

Would this really be a problem in America? I've spent my whole life in America and while seeing Maori face tattoos is unusual, it would hardly be a "turn-off" or even remotely negative if I saw that my chef had them. Do you mind if I ask what part of America you're in?

He's saying that people who had overcome institutional racism are better.

I don't think that he was talking about a white sushi chef from Kansas who have never been to Japan here.

I know that the race of the chef is orthogonal to whether or not the sushi is good. But I'm also pretty confident that many sushi restaurants, especially in the west, are purposely being deceptive about what they claim to be representing.

I assumed the message above wasn't about claiming all asians are alike. Rather it's claiming that many people, especially non-asians can't tell the difference and so having an asian of any background is enough to fake out most customers on those areas.

> they literally bring nothing to the table besides being Asian

Thanks for qualifying any Asian person as being nothing more than their race. I know it wasn't intentional, and the discrimination you face sucks, but please think more deeply when you write about race, especially races other than your own.