3 ms·

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 'anoth

by 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!
- smt88 11y ago
  Painting is a terrible comparison. The eyes are far more subtle and sensitive to information, which is what differentiates "good" paintings from "bad" paintings. You could change the tiniest detail in a painting and totally change the emotions people feel about it. Paintings can access the parts of our brain that process human faces and deep memories. Fish on rice, on the other hand, is a fairly simple combination of flavors. Most of the flavor comes from the fish. Sure, the quality of the fish matters, but I'd bet if you A/B tested "good" vs grocery-store sushi, people would randomly choose one or the other as "better". To put it another way, I don't believe in objective quality of sushi. I've had grocery store sushi that was better than super-authentic, super-expensive sushi. This all reminds me of people thinking wine is an art and has much more subtlety than it has[1]. 1. http://io9.gizmodo.com/wine-tasting-is-bullshit-heres-why-496098276 http://io9.gizmodo.com/wine-tasting-is-bullshit-heres-why-49...
  - mazerackham 11y ago
    lol the amount of bias you have towards your own culture is astounding. Taste and smell is a HUGELY sensitive skill. I don't doubt that changing the "tiniest detail in a paint" could "totally change the emotions", but for someone who doesn't really appreciate visual art nearly as much as food or music, I could be as easily dismissive towards it as you were towards food. To further counter your arguments, if you A/B tested some modern art in a museum vs some art you bought in a walmart, and it was on the same medium (same quality canvas, etc), people would randomly choose one or the other as "better".
    - smt88 11y ago
maaku 11y ago
> Some people make really great fish on rice and the majority of them happen to be Japanese Actually the majority of them are Chinese or Korean (outside of Japan at least).
- 59nadir 11y ago
  I had no idea. It makes sense, though.

by 59nadir 11y ago

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!
smt88 11y ago
Painting is a terrible comparison. The eyes are far more subtle and sensitive to information, which is what differentiates "good" paintings from "bad" paintings. You could change the tiniest detail in a painting and totally change the emotions people feel about it. Paintings can access the parts of our brain that process human faces and deep memories. Fish on rice, on the other hand, is a fairly simple combination of flavors. Most of the flavor comes from the fish. Sure, the quality of the fish matters, but I'd bet if you A/B tested "good" vs grocery-store sushi, people would randomly choose one or the other as "better". To put it another way, I don't believe in objective quality of sushi. I've had grocery store sushi that was better than super-authentic, super-expensive sushi. This all reminds me of people thinking wine is an art and has much more subtlety than it has[1]. 1. http://io9.gizmodo.com/wine-tasting-is-bullshit-heres-why-496098276 http://io9.gizmodo.com/wine-tasting-is-bullshit-heres-why-49...
- mazerackham 11y ago
  lol the amount of bias you have towards your own culture is astounding. Taste and smell is a HUGELY sensitive skill. I don't doubt that changing the "tiniest detail in a paint" could "totally change the emotions", but for someone who doesn't really appreciate visual art nearly as much as food or music, I could be as easily dismissive towards it as you were towards food. To further counter your arguments, if you A/B tested some modern art in a museum vs some art you bought in a walmart, and it was on the same medium (same quality canvas, etc), people would randomly choose one or the other as "better".
  - smt88 11y ago

maaku 11y ago

> Some people make really great fish on rice and the majority of them happen to be Japanese Actually the majority of them are Chinese or Korean (outside of Japan at least).

59nadir 11y ago
I had no idea. It makes sense, though.