Jiro is an old man. He is called Sensei, meaning “master,” more than “teacher” by his apprentices and staff. Jiro makes sushi but it is not just any ordinary sushi. He makes what a food writer describes as sushi with a simple and pure taste. The sushi is good despite and because it is simple. Why should something simple be special, the food expert asks.
Jiro is the subject of a documentary that attempts to probe his secret. Jiro has no secret ingredient unless you count persistence as some kind of condiment or approach to cooking.
The documentary covers all aspect of sushi-making, that Japanese food that was so exotic before but now one of the global food we are familiar with. Anyone can do sushi but very few people can do it the way Jiro does it.
Aside from the word “simple,” Jiro tells us being constant is really the way to make sushi. The sushi that is made today should be the same sushi one will have tomorrow. If there is a change in the sushi one eats today and the sushi he will have tomorrow, there is this exception that the sushi tomorrow should be better than the sushi yesterday.
The constancy in the life of Jiro is seen in his work as a chef and in his behavior as an individual. In commuting to his restaurant, he waits for the train on the same spot in the platform. Predictability is not rigidity but a platform for being able to see what good will come out each day from one’s action.
There is a fancy café found in malls. I have always found eating in that cozy place. The place is clean and the staff polite. This character, however, seems detached from the products they offer: the food quality is impolite because it seems to change each day. Perhaps, it is only the case of Caesar’s salad I regularly order from that place. There is never one way of preparing this simple salad in that place. One day, it has bacon bits; another day it has bacon strips. On some days, the chicken strips are not there at all, or maybe they have been scratched to bits. On other days, a slab of garlic bread is on top of a mountain of lettuce; on some other days, the greens are so lean they might as well be slender moringa or malunggay.
This afternoon, I was confronted with lettuce soggy and wet with dressing. Overdressed salad is as bad as an overdressed person. Like acting, good salad should show restraint. Ask for a slap of dressing when things are wanting but never drown lettuce in anything. A drowned vegie is a dead vegie. Death among the greens is never forgivable.
The lesson from Jiro is not how to make good sushi but how to be a good person. Even with the dialogue done in Japanese with English subtitles, one overhears the word “perfectionist” uttered to describe the craft of Jiro and the culture from which those skills sprung.
The Japanese have turned many of their local food into global hits. This is an achievement that we have yet to gain. There is no question we have culinary traditions that can be introduced to the world. The problem is how we can be constant about the taste and the presentation of these cuisines.
Can we say the Filipino food is not vetted through its presentation? Perhaps, the notion of food presentation is “ethnocentric.” Then there must be a different way of selling our cuisine to the world. We can focus on the resources for the food preparation. In Metro Manila, people are always talking of laing and pili and yet no one really bothers with getting to know the taro leaves, what Bikolanos call natong. The exonym laing vanishes in the Bicol region where the leaves are deconstructed in every province. In Masbate and some parts of Sorsogon, the stem of the gabi is included in the cooking. In Camarines Sur, the leaves are dried and are examined for their ideal texture. You see, we, too, have our own quirks and fastidiousness that Jiro Ono, in the documentary, exhibits.
For that matter, in the preparation of sushi, the master has to deal with the source in the famed Tsukiji market. In one scene, a tuna buyer carries a flashlight he trains onto a sample flesh of tuna. When Jiro places the tuna on the rice to create sushi, the slice of fish looks crystal and red-fresh. This is very much like the old woman in a town in Bicol who would not cook laing because there are no good leaves available.
The problem of identity is present in cuisine that one must prove to be unique to a particular. I am certain the Koreans, a neighboring culture to Japan, must have their own sushi. Jiro, all of 85 years of age in 2011 when the documentary was made, will never have any problem in claiming that he is unique because his sushi is the best.
The documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi is directed by David Gelb.
E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com