8 ms·

Confessions of a White Sushi Chef

35 points by Thevet 11y ago

zzalpha 11y ago
I began my official apprenticeship at age 28. My master physically beat me, which is a common practice. It’s corporal discipline. Oo This sounds eerily like a hazing. The author even says things like "When a white sushi chef says, 'I would work there, but it was too demanding,' then I say you are definitely too weak and we are not cut from the same cloth", as though enduring verbal and physical abuse is a sign of honour and hard work rather than dysfunction.
- horsecaptin 11y ago
  I think by "too demanding", they mean having to wash rice for years before having to wash fish for years.
- s986s 11y ago
  Culture and economics are strange. Is hazing the result of demanding discipline for high quality popular products? Or do popular products result in hazing since supply is bigger than demand? 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
  - kiiski 11y ago
    You hit dogs to stop them pooping inside? I don't think there's anything grey about that...
    - s986s 11y ago
      How do you train dogs? How doglike are humans? At what point is explaination not enough to discipline a person? Repetition becomes ignored? The appearence of weakness gives room for rebellion? You speak from a moral high ground but i really think these questions are worth exploring
      - kiiski 11y ago
        > How do you train dogs? By rewarding correct behaviour. Those questions have already been explored, and contemporary experts pretty much agree that punishing, especially physically beating, is counterproductive. Both for dogs and humans.
        s986s 11y ago
        Well who am i to doubt? I have never attempted contemporary tactics nor seen them in action. What i have seen is what has worked in the past because we are still animals (including myself) despite all the incredible tools and knowledge we have. Do you have use cases? I think this an incredible thing to explore. I can tell you think im insensitive. I appreciate you punishing my behaviour with stern talking. Clearly even you see the benefit
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- im2w1l 11y ago
  One of the less nice aspects of East Asian cultures. It's quite interesting how it seems to bypass many otherwise intelligent people's woo detectors. 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.
- SunShiranui 11y ago
  It seems like the author has done quite a lot of reframing to rationalize and justify what he's been through. To me, that sounds horrible, and I doubt I would allow anyone to behave like that with me, tradition or not.
archagon 11y ago
I read stories like this, and I wonder: does washing rice for 3 years really make your sushi that much better? 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". But at the end of the day, it's still fundamentally fish over rice. I can't help but wonder: if you look at the high-end sushi biz with perfect objectivity, is it one of those "Joe Biden eating a sandwich" things? And if not, why aren't most other "quick" foods susceptible to this level of rigor and scrutiny? Guess I'll have to visit Japan to find out.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- joshvm 11y ago
  I personally don't think that years spent washing rice will improve the taste of the food, but it may give the chef an appreciation for what he's doing. 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.
  - im2w1l 11y ago
    It produces a better tea drinking experience. Well at least for me. I love rituals. Even a ritual as simple as popping a piece of lime into a bottle of Corona does it for me.
- victorology 11y ago
  I can't answer your question but I don't think sushi is just fish over rice. 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.
Animats 11y ago
A white female friend of mine has worked as a sushi chef. She'd already been through a culinary academy and worked as a line chef at a high end restaurant. She just saw sushi as an additional skill.
- dennisnedry 11y ago
  I think the chef being interviewed is looking to become a "celebrity chef" by being a "white sushi chef". Perception is a big part of the culinary scene in the USA today.
huac 11y ago
But here’s the thing: In many respects, I also recommend eating with a white sushi chef. He’s probably had to train a lot harder and knows a little bit more about what is actually going on then, let’s say, someone who can just land a sushi job just because he is Asian; in that sense, they literally bring nothing to the table besides being Asian. yeah, after your story of how common it is to be beaten or forced to wash rice and fish for years among sushi apprentices, it makes sense that asian sushi chefs got their jobs 'literally' for being asian. oh also they're dumb (additionally, it's ludicrous to use 'asian' as a stand-in here: any non-japanese prospective apprentice would likely be treated with disdain)
- mazerackham 11y ago
  +1, I was gonna post about this quote. Extremely short sighted and offensive. > 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.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    You missed the "in that sense", which provides context to that statement.
    - mazerackham 11y ago
      I don't understand how "in that sense" qualifies the meaning differently. That does "that sense" refer to exactly?
      - icebraining 11y ago
        By that, I believe it's meant "particular qualities that make the candidate better suited for a sushi job".
- greggman 11y ago
known 11y ago
Sushi by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin ?
robk 11y ago
The racism is absolutely indefensible. But aren't the tattoo's a major turn off for Japanese preconceptions? In America, it's the equivalent of your chef having Maori face tattoos. Unusual to say the least. See: http://japandailypress.com/the-view-of-tattoos-in-japanese-society-295623/ http://japandailypress.com/the-view-of-tattoos-in-japanese-s...
- wutbrodo 11y ago
  > But aren't the tattoo's a major turn off for Japanese preconceptions? In America, it's the equivalent of your chef having Maori face tattoos. 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?
  - hussong 11y ago
    In Europe, they're almost required at this point for any up and coming hipster chef.
  - robk 11y ago
    Ok, maybe some other scarier face tattoos - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/12063417/Robber-with-F-Cops-face-tattoo-proves-easy-to-track-down.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...
59nadir 11y ago
This article just comes across as pretentious, honestly. The part about being beaten as some kind of teaching tool is only remotely accepted because it's 'another culture'. It's all bullshit. It's fish on rice. Some people make really great fish on rice and the majority of them happen to be Japanese, because that's where the love of it comes from. Let's stop trying to make it seem like magic, though. This is just sushi hipsterism.
- hkmurakami 11y ago
  There's a sushi place in Japan that's gotten great reviews even though the chefs only have 1 year of training. The narrative is that they've figured out that making great tasting sushi can be turned into something like a formula. 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.
- hussong 11y ago
  I find your comment overly dismissive, let's apply this position to painting for comparison: "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.
  - marincounty 11y ago
    I'm tired of people who think it's ok to rape the oceans for anything that moves. I was reading The Emigrants guide to Oregon and California. In it they talked about streams in California which had Salmon between 10 and 60 pounds. Sixty pounds? We have over fished. Period! Whenever I see fishing boats here, or in exotic countries; I want to disappear. I don't find anything about Sushi exotic!
sgdesign 11y ago
It's funny to see the level of fetishism around sushi. Here in Japan the spectrum goes all the way from cheap 100-yen-a-plate sushi joints, to Jiro. So it feels like sushi is a dish just like any other. In fact it always seemed to me like Kaiseki cuisine is probably a lot harder to prepare. And the "wash rice for three years" thing is just a leftover from the way apprenticeship traditionally work here, whether it's for sushi or any other craft. It's always seemed to me like a particularly inefficient way of training someone and passing on your skills.
dnautics 11y ago
One might expect there to be fewer women sushi chefs - supposedly, hand temperature is critical for creation and delivery of the perfect sushi, and most women have colder hands than men. (there are of course women with very warm hands and men with very cold hands)
anjc 11y ago
This is a very whiny article, and I find it funny that by the end of an article filled with the sentiment that racism in cooking is bad, that white people are just as capable, he finishes off by effectively saying that white people are better: > [the white cook has] probably had to train a lot harder and knows a little bit more about what is actually going on then, let’s say, someone who can just land a sushi job just because he is Asian; in that sense, they literally bring nothing to the table besides being Asian. On top of this, I find it troubling that diversity complaints and gender quotas are now apparently being aimed at legal/loved/admired cultural traditions. If Japanese sushi kitchens are mainly run by Japanese men...let them at it. What harm is it to you or anyone? As a white male, I don't expect that I'd be let become a geisha any time soon, and that seems fair enough to me...?
- golergka 11y ago
  He's not saying that white people are better. 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.
  - anjc 11y ago
    > He's saying that people who had overcome institutional racism are better. He specifically says 'white'
    - golergka 11y ago
      Context.
  - mazerackham 11y ago
    I'm not saying the racism the author has experienced is right, it sucks, it's wrong, and I actually know how he feels because I have had similar experiences with race in my own life. But I have read A LOT of arguments on HN trying to downplay or outright deny racism in tech, when that black engineering leader at Twitter quit, and for the combative white people there, who seemed to refuse to deny that racism existed here, but sympathize with this white guy here, let me ask you this: Why should sushi restaurants lower their standards and let this white guy into their established restaurant, just for the sake of diversity? Sushi restaurants are all for equality, but we would never want them to lower their standards and serve lower quality food right? Also, if this white guy really wants to get in, he needs to change his culture. That laziness, loudness, and lack of respect for tradition will never get him anywhere in the sushi world.

35 points by Thevet 11y ago

I began my official apprenticeship at age 28. My master physically beat me, which is a common practice. It’s corporal discipline. Oo This sounds eerily like a hazing. The author even says things like "When a white sushi chef says, 'I would work there, but it was too demanding,' then I say you are definitely too weak and we are not cut from the same cloth", as though enduring verbal and physical abuse is a sign of honour and hard work rather than dysfunction.

horsecaptin 11y ago
I think by "too demanding", they mean having to wash rice for years before having to wash fish for years.
s986s 11y ago
Culture and economics are strange. Is hazing the result of demanding discipline for high quality popular products? Or do popular products result in hazing since supply is bigger than demand? 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
- kiiski 11y ago
  You hit dogs to stop them pooping inside? I don't think there's anything grey about that...
  - s986s 11y ago
    How do you train dogs? How doglike are humans? At what point is explaination not enough to discipline a person? Repetition becomes ignored? The appearence of weakness gives room for rebellion? You speak from a moral high ground but i really think these questions are worth exploring
    - kiiski 11y ago
      > How do you train dogs? By rewarding correct behaviour. Those questions have already been explored, and contemporary experts pretty much agree that punishing, especially physically beating, is counterproductive. Both for dogs and humans.
      - s986s 11y ago
        Well who am i to doubt? I have never attempted contemporary tactics nor seen them in action. What i have seen is what has worked in the past because we are still animals (including myself) despite all the incredible tools and knowledge we have. Do you have use cases? I think this an incredible thing to explore. I can tell you think im insensitive. I appreciate you punishing my behaviour with stern talking. Clearly even you see the benefit
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
im2w1l 11y ago
One of the less nice aspects of East Asian cultures. It's quite interesting how it seems to bypass many otherwise intelligent people's woo detectors. 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.
SunShiranui 11y ago
It seems like the author has done quite a lot of reframing to rationalize and justify what he's been through. To me, that sounds horrible, and I doubt I would allow anyone to behave like that with me, tradition or not.

archagon 11y ago

I read stories like this, and I wonder: does washing rice for 3 years really make your sushi that much better? 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". But at the end of the day, it's still fundamentally fish over rice. I can't help but wonder: if you look at the high-end sushi biz with perfect objectivity, is it one of those "Joe Biden eating a sandwich" things? And if not, why aren't most other "quick" foods susceptible to this level of rigor and scrutiny? Guess I'll have to visit Japan to find out.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
joshvm 11y ago
I personally don't think that years spent washing rice will improve the taste of the food, but it may give the chef an appreciation for what he's doing. 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.
- im2w1l 11y ago
  It produces a better tea drinking experience. Well at least for me. I love rituals. Even a ritual as simple as popping a piece of lime into a bottle of Corona does it for me.
victorology 11y ago
I can't answer your question but I don't think sushi is just fish over rice. 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.

Animats 11y ago

A white female friend of mine has worked as a sushi chef. She'd already been through a culinary academy and worked as a line chef at a high end restaurant. She just saw sushi as an additional skill.

dennisnedry 11y ago
I think the chef being interviewed is looking to become a "celebrity chef" by being a "white sushi chef". Perception is a big part of the culinary scene in the USA today.

huac 11y ago

But here’s the thing: In many respects, I also recommend eating with a white sushi chef. He’s probably had to train a lot harder and knows a little bit more about what is actually going on then, let’s say, someone who can just land a sushi job just because he is Asian; in that sense, they literally bring nothing to the table besides being Asian. yeah, after your story of how common it is to be beaten or forced to wash rice and fish for years among sushi apprentices, it makes sense that asian sushi chefs got their jobs 'literally' for being asian. oh also they're dumb (additionally, it's ludicrous to use 'asian' as a stand-in here: any non-japanese prospective apprentice would likely be treated with disdain)

mazerackham 11y ago
+1, I was gonna post about this quote. Extremely short sighted and offensive. > 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.
- icebraining 11y ago
  You missed the "in that sense", which provides context to that statement.
  - mazerackham 11y ago
    I don't understand how "in that sense" qualifies the meaning differently. That does "that sense" refer to exactly?
    - icebraining 11y ago
      By that, I believe it's meant "particular qualities that make the candidate better suited for a sushi job".
greggman 11y ago

known 11y ago

Sushi by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin ?

robk 11y ago

The racism is absolutely indefensible. But aren't the tattoo's a major turn off for Japanese preconceptions? In America, it's the equivalent of your chef having Maori face tattoos. Unusual to say the least. See: http://japandailypress.com/the-view-of-tattoos-in-japanese-society-295623/ http://japandailypress.com/the-view-of-tattoos-in-japanese-s...

wutbrodo 11y ago
> But aren't the tattoo's a major turn off for Japanese preconceptions? In America, it's the equivalent of your chef having Maori face tattoos. 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?
- hussong 11y ago
  In Europe, they're almost required at this point for any up and coming hipster chef.
- robk 11y ago
  Ok, maybe some other scarier face tattoos - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/12063417/Robber-with-F-Cops-face-tattoo-proves-easy-to-track-down.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...

59nadir 11y ago

This article just comes across as pretentious, honestly. The part about being beaten as some kind of teaching tool is only remotely accepted because it's 'another culture'. It's all bullshit. It's fish on rice. Some people make really great fish on rice and the majority of them happen to be Japanese, because that's where the love of it comes from. Let's stop trying to make it seem like magic, though. This is just sushi hipsterism.

hkmurakami 11y ago
There's a sushi place in Japan that's gotten great reviews even though the chefs only have 1 year of training. The narrative is that they've figured out that making great tasting sushi can be turned into something like a formula. 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.
hussong 11y ago
I find your comment overly dismissive, let's apply this position to painting for comparison: "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.
- marincounty 11y ago
  I'm tired of people who think it's ok to rape the oceans for anything that moves. I was reading The Emigrants guide to Oregon and California. In it they talked about streams in California which had Salmon between 10 and 60 pounds. Sixty pounds? We have over fished. Period! Whenever I see fishing boats here, or in exotic countries; I want to disappear. I don't find anything about Sushi exotic!

sgdesign 11y ago

It's funny to see the level of fetishism around sushi. Here in Japan the spectrum goes all the way from cheap 100-yen-a-plate sushi joints, to Jiro. So it feels like sushi is a dish just like any other. In fact it always seemed to me like Kaiseki cuisine is probably a lot harder to prepare. And the "wash rice for three years" thing is just a leftover from the way apprenticeship traditionally work here, whether it's for sushi or any other craft. It's always seemed to me like a particularly inefficient way of training someone and passing on your skills.

dnautics 11y ago

One might expect there to be fewer women sushi chefs - supposedly, hand temperature is critical for creation and delivery of the perfect sushi, and most women have colder hands than men. (there are of course women with very warm hands and men with very cold hands)

anjc 11y ago

This is a very whiny article, and I find it funny that by the end of an article filled with the sentiment that racism in cooking is bad, that white people are just as capable, he finishes off by effectively saying that white people are better: > [the white cook has] probably had to train a lot harder and knows a little bit more about what is actually going on then, let’s say, someone who can just land a sushi job just because he is Asian; in that sense, they literally bring nothing to the table besides being Asian. On top of this, I find it troubling that diversity complaints and gender quotas are now apparently being aimed at legal/loved/admired cultural traditions. If Japanese sushi kitchens are mainly run by Japanese men...let them at it. What harm is it to you or anyone? As a white male, I don't expect that I'd be let become a geisha any time soon, and that seems fair enough to me...?

golergka 11y ago
He's not saying that white people are better. 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.
- anjc 11y ago
  > He's saying that people who had overcome institutional racism are better. He specifically says 'white'
  - golergka 11y ago
    Context.
- mazerackham 11y ago
  I'm not saying the racism the author has experienced is right, it sucks, it's wrong, and I actually know how he feels because I have had similar experiences with race in my own life. But I have read A LOT of arguments on HN trying to downplay or outright deny racism in tech, when that black engineering leader at Twitter quit, and for the combative white people there, who seemed to refuse to deny that racism existed here, but sympathize with this white guy here, let me ask you this: Why should sushi restaurants lower their standards and let this white guy into their established restaurant, just for the sake of diversity? Sushi restaurants are all for equality, but we would never want them to lower their standards and serve lower quality food right? Also, if this white guy really wants to get in, he needs to change his culture. That laziness, loudness, and lack of respect for tradition will never get him anywhere in the sushi world.