11–20 of 57 posts
Well, you could accept at face-value the self-congratulating laudatory first answer... or you could look at how apprenticeships traditionally work, the low wages, concepts like hidden equity, and the sale of restaurants to successors.
Semi-related: "Jiro Dreams of Sushi", a excelent 90minute documentary movie about "Jiro", an 85-year-old sushi master is available on YouTube w/ english subs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYN7p8dvr64 Great watch, even if you never had sushi or don't like sushi. The extreme drive for perfection is admirable.
Apparently, Tampopo is in a similar vein (though fiction) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048/?ref_=fn_al_tt_9
Languages all seem to lack the right word for it. "Mastery", "wisdom" etc. all don't seem to quite capture the essence of it. I'm frequently glad for Heinlein's invention of the word "grok" to finally give a name to it. I just wish it was a prettier word.
(That page ends up referencing, among other things, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satori , which may go well with sushi.)
Can a blinded panel pick out top quality sushi? I hear sommeliers can't do so for wine, often failing to do well even at identifying red versus white. My first cynical guess for why the education is so long is that customers will pay more for it, regardless of whether or not the product itself benefits. Then again, I barely eat sushi.
Since fish can vary from practically tasteless to overpowering, it probably depends on the type of fish. But I've seen people can eat sushi and tell you the exact temperature based on the flavor. Or what part of the ocean the fish came from based on the flavor. Those are pretty objective metrics.
Then there's also the whole "people end up in the hospital if you screw up". If you're a poor and unclean sushi chef, you are going to make people sick eventually.
For example, he says, "I think my nigiri is still far from perfect: could use improvement to reach the perfect fish and rice balance with firmness and texture."
Why does this take years as opposed to taking standardized pieces of fish and testing by simply adding more or less rice to it. Why would this process take years?
I get what he's saying in general, that things can be infinitely improved, but why years and decades?
Can a blinded panel pick out top quality sushi? I hear sommeliers can't do so for wine, often failing to do well even at identifying red versus white. My first cynical guess for why the education is so long is that customers will pay more for it, regardless of whether or not the product itself benefits. Then again, I barely eat sushi.
> Can a blinded panel pick out top quality sushi? Since fish can vary from practically tasteless to overpowering, it probably depends on the type of fish. But I've seen people can eat sushi and tell you the exact temperature based on the flavor. Or what part of the ocean the fish came from based on the flavor. Those are pretty objective metrics. Then there's also the whole "people end up in the hospital if you screw…
Languages all seem to lack the right word for it. "Mastery", "wisdom" etc. all don't seem to quite capture the essence of it. I'm frequently glad for Heinlein's invention of the word "grok" to finally give a name to it. I just wish it was a prettier word.
There's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(feeling) , although it's not a verb, and would probably be rather weirded if verbed. (That page ends up referencing, among other things, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satori , which may go well with sushi.)
'Grok' has always seemed to mean to me something kind of like this, where no further epiphanies are possible.
It's only "insane" by myopic Western/American standards. Look at the martial arts of Japan (Judo, Jujitsu) where to earn a black belt--which is traditionally not the end of learning but merely symbolizes understanding of the basics--takes at least 10 years of dedicated study. Since martial arts began to be "Americanized" in the ~1980s, we now see black belts handed out to 8 year old children after a year or two of st…
So nothing has fundamentally changed, except that now there are more degrees of belts.