Due to the impact of the epidemic, everyone must have spent a lot of time studying the problem of eating during this period. When it comes to eating, the choice of Chinese food can be described as varied. China is a country with a vast land and abundant resources. On the other hand, Japan, which is across the sea from us, has a small land area, is surrounded by the sea, and has a single climate, so its diet is also relatively simple, and its food is mainly rice and seafood. If you choose a food to represent Japanese food culture, sushi is undoubtedly the best representative.
Small sushi, simple structure: a piece of sashimi, a small ball of rice. Chinese people who have tasted Chinese food all over the place may be happy when they see this little thing. Is this also called food? However, as the saying goes, the simpler things are, the harder it is to do. Sushi is the ultimate expression of the philosophy of food simplicity.
And such simple food is often expensive. On the basement floor of an office building in Tokyo, Japan, there is a sky-high sushi restaurant hidden. How expensive is it? The minimum per capita consumption is 30,000 yen (about 2,000 yuan), and a piece of sushi costs 100 yuan . One of the most expensive restaurants in the world, this sushi restaurant is called "Sukiyabashi Jiro" .
From the outside, it looks very simple, even a little shabby. A small shop with only ten seats behind the wooden fence. If you want to use the toilet, you have to go outside. The most exaggerated thing is that if you want to experience this store, you need to book a month in advance, and a meal is limited to 15 minutes. Despite this, there are still a steady stream of diners from all over the world. Those who have eaten it lamented that this is "sushi worth waiting for a lifetime". How can a basement sushi restaurant without a toilet charge sky-high prices and be so arrogant? The reason is that there are only two 3-Michelin-starred sushi restaurants in Japan, and this is one of them.
The picky Michelin investigator said after eating Sukiyabashi Jiro's sushi -- "No matter how many times I've eaten it, its sushi is always amazing, and only three stars deserve this sushi restaurant." As of last year, This restaurant has been dubbed the God of Sushi and has been awarded stars for 12 consecutive years. The reason why Michelin was delisted in 2019 was that the store did not accept appointments from general customers. Celebrities such as Beckham and "Uncle Wolf" Hugh Jackman are all loyal fans of this store. Even Obama made a special trip to this sushi restaurant when he visited Japan that year, and its reputation is evident.
Behind every legendary restaurant, there must be a legendary chef. The man behind "Sukiyabashi Jiro" is called Jiro Ono , who is 90 years old this year and is the oldest three-star chef in the world, known as the "God of Sushi".
The young American David Jaber loved sushi since he was a child. After hearing about Jiro Ono, he recorded the story of the god of sushi with his camera. The documentary "The God of Sushi" revealed the secret of the old man's "Feng Shen".
god of sushi
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Director: David Jabber Starring: Jiro Ono / Shinichi Ono / Takashi Ono / Masahiro Yamamoto Release Date: 2011-11-08 (AFI Film Festival) / 2013-02-02 (Japan) Duration: 81 minutes
In fact, sushi, which seems to be a tall food today, was originally just a snack sold at street stalls. It is precisely because the producers keep improving and continuously improve the ingredients and production skills that this simple street food has developed into a food culture.
Jiro Ono was born in 1925 in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. When he was young, his father's business failed and he died in a foreign land. After that, Erlang began to be self-reliant. Later, I went to Tokyo as an apprentice, and the first half of my life was extremely difficult.
He wakes up at 5am to work and goes home at 10pm every day so that the kids in the family don't even know him. Years later, Jiro finally opened a sushi restaurant called "Sukiyabashi Jiro" in Ginza, Tokyo.
Erlang lived a poor life when he was young and middle-aged, and his two sons recalled that when they were young, they were so poor that they couldn't even drink Coke.
Fortunately, after all the hard work, Jiro's "Sukiyabashi Jiro" sushi restaurant is now a national treasure restaurant in Japan. There is a big " Sushi" on the front of the sushi store . Sushi is a type of fish that is also used to refer to sushi. This pictogram can be said to perfectly interpret the connotation of sushi - sushi is the taste of fish, the taste of fish.
What is the purpose? It was first discovered by the Japanese and called it umami. Some people describe the taste as fresh, but in fact it is difficult to describe the taste with exact words. Jiro Ono said: "It's hard to explain the taste. It's not that the fish has good quality, but it's the combination of vinegar rice and soy sauce, and the balance of the taste can be considered to achieve the taste. "
And the art of sushi is to try to make fish and rice reach the realm of melding taste. It's more of an art than a food. Of course, anything done to the extreme is art.
Jiro Ono's sushi doesn't have fancy looks or complicated mixes. But famous chefs from all over the world will be amazed how such a simple thing can taste so deep after eating Jiro sushi. If there is one word to describe Erlang Sushi, it is "minimalist and pure" .
Before opening the store every day, he will personally taste the ingredients of the day, to ensure that the ingredients provided to the guests are the best, and the ingredients that are not good enough cannot be served on the table.
Because of the mass-produced conveyor belt sushi and convenience store sushi, Japan is overfished, and many fish ingredients are in short supply. Good fish ingredients are getting harder and harder to find.
The good here does not refer to the precious ingredients, but the ingredients that Jiro Ono thinks are the most suitable for making sushi. These ingredients are selected by him personally at the market.
In Japanese seafood markets, good vendors only sell one ingredient. Those who sell tuna only sell tuna, and those who sell shrimp only sell shrimp.
Buy Rice also has an exclusive supplier who has cooperated for many years. Erlang believes that the rice merchant knows which kind of rice is the best, and the rice merchant believes that only Erlang knows how to cook the best rice.
Erlang's method of cooking rice is to use a lot of pressure to cook, but he did not use a normal pressure cooker. Cover the pot that can only be lifted with both hands, and press a bucket of water.
The temperature of the rice is equally important. Many people think that sushi is cold, but in fact the rice should be maintained at human body temperature.
Jiro Ono buys fish from the best fish seller, shrimp from the best shrimp seller, and rice from the best rice seller. From the temperature of the vinegared rice, to the length of time to pickle the fish, to the strength of massaging the octopus, Jiro Ono still personally supervises. He will carefully arrange the seats according to the customer's gender and dining habits, and always pay attention to the guests' dining situation to make adjustments.
There is an ideal moment for every ingredient, and all sushi is best eaten as soon as it's on the table. So, meal times for sushi are generally quick.
The order in which sushi is served is also very particular, and those with heavier tastes should be served later. The menu should be cadenced, like a concerto.
The same kind of fish should also be divided into fat and thin to make different sushi. Sushi "tuna big belly" and "middle belly" are made of meat with different fatness and thinness.
Great chefs tend to have five qualities—first, taking their work seriously and consistently maintaining the highest level of performance.
Second, focus on improving your skills and never be easily satisfied.
The third is to love cleanliness. If the restaurant does not feel clean, the food will not be delicious.
The fourth trait is stubbornness, sticking to one's own way.
Last but not least, great chefs must have passion.
Erlang's two sons also inherited his business, the eldest son helped in the store, and the second son opened a branch. He trained his two sons more strictly than the other apprentices.
The eldest son, Ono Zhen, was very repelled by this harsh technique at first, and then gradually realized the fun of making sushi and joined it.
Ono Zhenichi believes: "Some people are born with talent and have a keen sense of taste or smell. In our industry, as long as we are serious enough, we will be skilled in craftsmanship. If you want to be famous, you must have talent, and the rest is See how hard you work."
Jiro's second son, Ono Takashi, opened a branch in Roppongi with lower prices. The dining atmosphere is also relaxed, allowing more people who are intimidated by the high prices to experience first-class sushi.
There are not many disciples under Erlang's name, and many people come here because of his name, but in the end they all leave because they can't hold on. It is not so simple to obtain the true biography of Erlang. To be an apprentice here, you must first learn to twist a towel by hand. You have to twist a very hot wet towel until it is almost completely dry. You cannot touch the fish until you have learned to twist the towel. After that, you can learn to use a knife and cook fish, and it will be ten years later that the master will teach you how to fry an egg. Jiro Ono had an apprentice who practiced frying eggs for a long time, but he still couldn't reach the master's standard. He worked hard for 4 months, and after more than 200 failures, he made the first "qualified" fried egg.
But the fried egg is only the first level. It takes 3 years to learn sushi and learn how to prepare rice. It took at least 8 years to learn how to press sushi into a sushi roll. In this way, it is impossible to become a teacher without ten or twenty years of hard work. Although Erlang treated his apprentice harshly, he did not bury his apprentice's work and dedication in front of the camera. Preparing ingredients is an important job for sushi, and these are all done by apprentices. When the fish was handed over to him, the sushi was 95% complete, and Jiro laughed at himself - "The most relaxed person steals the show."
It stands to reason that the ninety-year-old Jiro Ono should retire and enjoy his old age. But Erlang never seemed to want to retire, he loved the job and devoted his life to it. "I just love making sushi, that's the craftsmanship."
Craftsman means craftsman in Japanese. Traditional Japanese craftsmen often only engage in one job in their entire life. The so-called craftsman's spirit is the craftsman's spirit. In the words of Jiro Ono: "Once you decide on a career, you must devote yourself to your work, you must love your work, never complain, and you must spend your life honing your skills."
Jiro Ono said -
I keep repeating the same thing to improve, always yearning to improve, I keep going up, trying to reach the peak, but no one knows where the peak is. I still don't think I'm perfect, I love my job, and I've devoted my life to it.
It is not difficult for a person to maintain this attitude for a period of time. The hard part is to persist in it for a lifetime, and even the second-generation store owner and every store clerk pass on this attitude. That's how a truly legendary brand was born. We keep saying that "attitude is everything", but it's easier said than done. In modern society, everyone wants to be a smart person who achieves quick success. And the story of the god of sushi tells us that anyone who can be "entitled god" in a field has a talent that may be beyond ordinary people. What's left is the attitude of "perseverance and excellence" . There is no shortcut to "conferring gods" in any field, but it is not impossible. After all, it's up to people.
*The author of this article: RAMA
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