Let's be honest, any idiot can boil rice and slap a bit of fish on top can't they? Yet pick up any book on sushi and somewhere in it there'll be a claim it takes decades to be a sushi chef? In other words it takes longer to learn how to chop up a fish than learn brain surgery.
So is there really a difference between sushi made by a master who's served a 20 year apprenticeship and someone with a few weeks of practice can produce?
In japan they take heir craft very seriously. It doesn't matter what they're doing they want to do it as well as possible. And sushi is definitely not easy. I can taste the difference between supermarket sushi and better sushi. I've never had the best sushi so I can't compare that yet but I bet it makes a difference. I saw a video about a sushi chef in japan it's quite interesting. He has to go to the market and look for the perfect tuna then he has to age it in the freezer for the right amount of time the preparation and presentation of the meal is only the final step.
There's a reason even Gordon Ramsay takes so much pride in things like his ability to butcher salmon. It's not an easy skill to master.
That said, even forming nigiri isn't as easy as it looks to do with extreme speed as needed for a bustling Kaitenzushi restaurant in Tokyo where a chef can easily have to form at 500+ pieces of nigiri over the course of around 8 hours of frantic work.
I think it's at least as difficult as mastering Neapolian pizza making like so: https://youtu.be/vEZjs2TqB9o Personally I think even more difficult but at least as difficult, I'd suspect.
This is my fair share of nigiri tonight in the u. s. lol. Agreed with @GuyAnswersGirls123 that it does take a long time to master it to meet the quality, skillset, and artwork of it. Japan’s sushi definitely cannot be compared to those in other countries.
What's the type on the bottom-left if I may ask? I recognize middle as what looks like otoro (fancy!) and top-right as hotate with ikura on top (I love ikura).
Oh, Nikuzushi (meat sushi)! Beef one is my absolute favorite as well! Here we sometimes eat raw horse (basashi) and raw chicken (torisashi) as well, although I don't think those are so popular outside of Japan.
It has to be prepared totally fresh and poached using a process called seiromushi to kill bacteria. It still made me a bit nervous trying it at my wife's persuasion (my wife's from Kyushu and raw chicken is famous in Kyushu). It is quite delicious though!
Sushi cooks learn 1 year alone sharpening sushi knife. Don't expect getting sushi cook license too soon, especially if you want serve fugu and other fishes with deadly neurotoxins in their organs.
Authentic sushi from different parts of Japan tastes a million times better than the bs they feed us in the west. Even our wasabi isn’t real. There’s a whole ceremony that goes into eating sushi and not the fast AYCE stuff they have us believe is real. I can imagine it taking years to master.
Probably that claim is a way of saying there's more to sushis than cooking (the correct) rice, and chopping fish and particular vegetables. In the Japanese culture, the presentation, the aspect, is very important. The sushi, as many things in Japanese life, is a piece of art, and must be a joy as well for the eyes as the mouth. Well, that's my guess ;0)
Considering how many different varieties of fish there are, and everything that goes into the selection and preparation of sushi, I'm not surprised it takes many, many years to master it. Don't know about 20 - that seems like overkill.
But consider it like this; a chef fresh out of culinary school or a chef who's had a year's experience at a decent restaurant, is not likely to be as knowledgeable or as creative or good as a chef with 10 year's experience in a 5-star restaurant. Similarly, there's more to sushi than slappin' some raw fish on cooked rice.
It takes the 20 years to learn of to prepared the fish as some of them like the Tetraodontidae family of fish which contain Tetrodotoxin, which is 1000 times more potent than cyanide and there is no antidote.
I'm a regular at a local Sushi Restaurant near me and the last time I went they have me a chef that had worked 9 days. I could definitely see and taste the difference in his abilities. The rice was crumbly and the portions were cut to large to consume comfortably in one bite.
If you start by just boiling rice, you have already lost. Sushi is made with vinegared rice, usually with some salt and sugar. If you learn to make the rice correctly, then you need to learn what vegetables go well with it and what meats, usually seafood. There are then many styles of presentation, but the one key ingredient is shari (sushi rice).
Yes it really does. Just because any idiot can make rice doesn't mean they can make good rice or even sushi rice. There is also the fact that sushi is raw fish which is a whole thing in and of itself
