The stroke was smooth, the blade angled and the wrist moving in a small controlled arc. And again. And again. Rainbow layers lined the cutting board and sushi flowers emerged like origami, blooming in close quarters on a lacquered tray. But the clock was ticking: This is not only art, it’s performance, too, and these chefs were being judged on talent during a recent sushi skills and technique contest.
The sushi chefs must remember to wipe down the wood block, the knife blade (continually), the presentation tray, even the rim of the rice steamer. They must make sure the straw mat in which they roll the maki is turned the right way so that the grass grain runs smooth. They must set aside trimmings that might be used later at a real sushi bar, and throw away the bits that wouldn’t. They should mound the pungent green wasabi along one side of the bowl so that just the right amount comes off onto their fingers. And they must clean the table, overturn the wasabi dish, rinse the towels and put the rice away before stepping away and calling time.
In sushi culture, standards are high.
But in an age when mass-produced sushi is shipped across the country every night and popped into grocery cases as “fresh,” and pay-by-the-weigh luncheonettes pile unseasoned rice and spinach rolls next to the macaroni and cheese, the old-line sushi professionals fear a crucial decline in their art even at the highest levels. Sushi’s popularity, they believe, could be its undoing.
Foreign dilution
“In foreign countries, they no longer take old forms so seriously,” says Shigao Mori, chairman of the All-Japan Sushi Association. “Even perhaps the Japanese in other countries. But in Japan it is very different; tradition is very important.”
As it is to the U.S. Sushi Society, the host for its second annual contest, a fledgling subdivision of the “sushi Olympics” held every four years in Tokyo. The Washington-area competition is the first sanctioned outside Japan, and consequently, it has gotten quite a bit of attention: For the second time, the six-judge panel of experts flown in from Japan has been headed by Mori.
In near-silence, nine sushi chefs from the Washington area and New Jersey raced to make 30 pieces of sushi and three maki rolls. In 25 minutes, they cut the bamboo leaf decorations; trim and slice the fish (in evenly sized pieces); arrange them on palmed cylinders of rice; trim the nori (dried seaweed) sheets; spoon the salmon roe and sea urchin into rings of nori, like mini-souffle collars; roll, tighten and slice the maki; then arrange all the sushi on a round lacquer tray before cleaning the “kitchen” and replacing their tools.
The Tokyo Olympics are extremely prestigious, and competitors must survive several rounds to get to the big game. Organizers of the Washington event hope that in February 2003, they will have representatives in Tokyo standing “before the board,” the literal meaning of the term itamae, or sushi chef.
An East Coast thing
The program is ambitious, considering that the U.S. society so far includes only nine restaurants from the District of Columbia, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey. After the 2002 Washington contest, the U.S. winners will themselves be pitted against one another, and then the winners of the two classes will fly to Tokyo.
While the contestants are intensely aware of their role as standard-bearers, they are also, to some extent, fending off the growing influence of the celebrity chef. While more and more Americans are considering cooking careers, they often expect to master the business, become famous and open their own restaurants in a matter of years–whereas the classical sushi apprenticeship in Japan began with the washing of vegetables and could last as long as 15 years, and the ideal is modesty, not fame.
Timing is crucial
There are two categories at the Washington event, the nigiri class (also called Edo-style sushi, because it developed in Edo, now Tokyo) and a second contest, only 15 minutes long, in which the chefs must make five maki, varying the ingredients and the patterns.
The time is surprisingly tight, considering all the details involved: In fact, of the nine contestants in the nigiri division, only four met the time limit, and five or six the maki deadline.
Before the actual competition, Kurihara, the defending U.S. nigiri champion, demonstrated his award-winning technique, from peeling and trimming the shrimp to wiping down the board and raising his hand, the signal for “finished.” In his demonstration, he actually pared his time to 23 minutes, although he allowed himself one more for safety’s sake in the actual contest.
As he prepared to slice through a roll, Kurihara centered it on the cutting board, lifted his ring and small fingers and paused a balance beat, then pressed the knife through the middle of the seaweed. The other contestants watched intently. “The judges look to see how even the cuts are,” whispered Terry Segawa, an officer of the U.S. organization. “A sushi knife is not symmetrical like a Western knife; it’s curved on one side, so you have to cut at a slight angle.”
Cleanliness first, and last
Because of the delicacy of working with raw fish, and also because the food is prepared using the bare hands, the sushi chef must be fanatically careful about contamination. This is more than just sanitation, it’s a matter of respect: Cleanliness is next to zenliness, so to speak.
Attention is paid to the chef’s appearance, from his head (clean, sharply folded cap, no bangs in the eyes, no beard) to his feet (white sneakers or shoes only). All clothing must be white (including, the rules point out, underwear), and without logos or visible brand names. Even the color of the knife handle should be modest natural wood.
This is also partly a matter of self-preservation: After all, raw foods require careful handling, and though the Japanese are careful not to impugn anyone, they are concerned that the growing number of self-taught sushimakers and less-rigorous high-quality seafood purveyors might result in incautious consumers getting “off” meals. Any health backlash would be very hard on the thriving Japanese restaurant industry.
Hence in the competitions, the completion and arrangement of the sushi itself accounts for only 50 of the 100 judging points. Prepping the area counts 5, the cleanliness 10, the technique 25 and the cleaning up another 10.
The chef must stand erect, and to the professional eye, the relaxed but close position of the arms and the graceful action of the wrist are hallmarks of good technique. The hands come under special scrutiny, of course: the nails must be clean, the fingers ring-free. Any tiny nick suffered during the contest immediately disqualifies the chef and makes his sushi inedible.
Some of the most important things aren’t even enunciated. How sharp, and how even, is the knife’s edge? How was it held by the chef? It sounds like ritual for its own sake–5 points for traditional placement of ingredients around the mat, the “correct” use of the dish cloths and so on.
The education even continues in the midst of the judging. Mori leaned over Ramsey’s presentation and asked him to make another piece of mackerel nigiri. Slightly puzzled, Ramsey looked about, found a leftover bit, trimmed it and patted it over rice, setting the nigiri down before the chief judge. Then Mori ran his finger across the mackerel’s skin, and Ramsey was enlightened. The blue-gray “eyes” in the skin show better if the fish is stroked forward; if rubbed the wrong way, so to speak, the eyes “close.” It’s the sort of small aesthetic detail many “self-taught” sushimakers will never discover.
