4 ms·

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 gr

by 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
    Neither sushi nor paintings are my culture.
scanlimes 11y ago
If you substitute sushi for coffee or microbrews, I think his dismissal will sound much more reasonable. A fluff article deifying a hipster barista or brewer is met with rolled eye, but write about the same concept in a different culture and the mystique seems genuine.
- mazerackham 11y ago
  Coffee is one specific species of a bean, roasted, and brewed with varying amounts of hot water, milk, chocolate, and maybe a few other ingredients. There are endless species of fish, with wildly different tastes (salmon, vs tuna, vs tuna belly, vs monkfish liver, vs catfish, don't tell me you can't taste a difference). In addition to fish, there are crustaceans (crab, shrimp, lobster, etc), mollusks (oyster, clam, squid, octopus, cuttlefish), and probably other major animal types I'm omitting. The comparison is not adequate, sushi is inherently more diverse than coffee.
rawTruthHurts 11y ago
I think the hipsterism point stands. In the west it seems that, as long as it comes from far east, specially China, and specially specially Japan the land of manga, it's going to be magical and unique. Superficial? Definitely. Art?, well, I'd say cratfy, rather than artistic.
- mazerackham 11y ago
  lol, i would hesitate before calling a 5,000 year old culture "superficial". It makes you look superficial.
59nadir 11y ago
> I find your comment overly dismissive... That's a fair point. I think inserting painting here is slightly off base, but I'll take it. What I have an issue with is that people make this seem like magic and that the sushi trade/business/culinary art has such amazing properties that we should just throw up our hands and say "Well, it's magic and it couldn't possibly be that anything they do is up for debate". In the end, it's food. I think we should say "fuck that" to being beaten over some sushi as much as we should say "fuck that" to insane working hours and poor working conditions for chefs in other cuisine. It seems to me that some people suggest that sushi just wouldn't stay the same without the exact culture the masters have built around it. I think that's completely wrong. To give this more perspective, I don't think we would accept people being beaten for making mistakes while painting, and the idea of not being able to practice painting because you're not allowed to do more than clean brushes for three years seems fairly ridiculous to me. I think there's a place for challenging that culture and saying there should be a better way. > 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. I'm actually a very recent fan of sushi. I like it because it's like a foody snack and I can have some sushi next to me while I'm coding and just eat as I go. I'm sure the restaurants I go to are crap to real sushi-lovers, though. Especially since I'm fairly certain no one is getting beat in the kitchen, or having to wash rice for three years.

by hussong 11y ago

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
  Neither sushi nor paintings are my culture.

scanlimes 11y ago

If you substitute sushi for coffee or microbrews, I think his dismissal will sound much more reasonable. A fluff article deifying a hipster barista or brewer is met with rolled eye, but write about the same concept in a different culture and the mystique seems genuine.

mazerackham 11y ago
Coffee is one specific species of a bean, roasted, and brewed with varying amounts of hot water, milk, chocolate, and maybe a few other ingredients. There are endless species of fish, with wildly different tastes (salmon, vs tuna, vs tuna belly, vs monkfish liver, vs catfish, don't tell me you can't taste a difference). In addition to fish, there are crustaceans (crab, shrimp, lobster, etc), mollusks (oyster, clam, squid, octopus, cuttlefish), and probably other major animal types I'm omitting. The comparison is not adequate, sushi is inherently more diverse than coffee.

rawTruthHurts 11y ago

I think the hipsterism point stands. In the west it seems that, as long as it comes from far east, specially China, and specially specially Japan the land of manga, it's going to be magical and unique. Superficial? Definitely. Art?, well, I'd say cratfy, rather than artistic.

mazerackham 11y ago
lol, i would hesitate before calling a 5,000 year old culture "superficial". It makes you look superficial.

59nadir 11y ago

> I find your comment overly dismissive... That's a fair point. I think inserting painting here is slightly off base, but I'll take it. What I have an issue with is that people make this seem like magic and that the sushi trade/business/culinary art has such amazing properties that we should just throw up our hands and say "Well, it's magic and it couldn't possibly be that anything they do is up for debate". In the end, it's food. I think we should say "fuck that" to being beaten over some sushi as much as we should say "fuck that" to insane working hours and poor working conditions for chefs in other cuisine. It seems to me that some people suggest that sushi just wouldn't stay the same without the exact culture the masters have built around it. I think that's completely wrong. To give this more perspective, I don't think we would accept people being beaten for making mistakes while painting, and the idea of not being able to practice painting because you're not allowed to do more than clean brushes for three years seems fairly ridiculous to me. I think there's a place for challenging that culture and saying there should be a better way. > 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. I'm actually a very recent fan of sushi. I like it because it's like a foody snack and I can have some sushi next to me while I'm coding and just eat as I go. I'm sure the restaurants I go to are crap to real sushi-lovers, though. Especially since I'm fairly certain no one is getting beat in the kitchen, or having to wash rice for three years.