I dream of dreaming of sushi

Some things are bashed out in an instant, like a great pop song or a good sandwich. But other things, like your ‘life’s work’ need time.

The film, ‘Jiro Dreams of Sushi’ (dir. David Gelb, 2011) begins with Jiro Ono, who is generally considered the greatest living sushi chef (now 97), saying this…

“Once you decide on your occupation you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the secret of success and is the key to being regarded honourably.” 

Jiro started out as a sushi chef at seventeen years old. He spent most of his sons childhoods as a stranger to them, leaving for work before they woke up and coming home when they were asleep. When they grew up he told them not to go to university and instead trained them in his restaurant. When the documentary was filmed he had been working for 75 years and had earned 3 Michelin stars. 

It takes ten years for an apprentice at his restaurant to become fully qualified. Jiro has developed diligent methods to create his now mythic food. Apprentices at the restaurant massage the octopus for forty to fifty minutes to tenderise the meat. In one scene a junior chef tells us a story about him learning to make egg sushi. Only after two-hundred attempts did he gain Jiro’s approval, after which he cried with joy. He tells us also how proud he felt when Jiro began to refer to him as a ‘Shokunin’ (Artisan). 

But the film, as far as I can tell, is really about Jiro’s sons. More specifically his eldest Yoshikazu, his second in command at the original restaurant. His younger son formed his own restaurant as tradition dictates that Yoshikazu was destined to inherit. As far as I can tell, over a decade since the film was made, when it seemed Yoshikazu silently hoped to be handed the reigns, his father still runs the restaurant. 

Yoshikazu, was in his fifties at the time of the documentary and was incorrectly considered by the public, significantly less skillful and important than his father despite doing the majority of the work.

“I heard that during the first year Jiro’s was checked by Michelin, Jiro didn’t make sushi for Michelin even once. Yoshikazu was the one who made the sushi for them.” 

He nobly lives in the same way his father does, simply, continually committed to repeating the same things for decades, with the singular mission to improve. At the end of the film, we hear Jiro say that when he dies he hopes his sons continue for the rest of their lives. 

“I want both my sons to continue on. They both will run their own restaurants. I will admit I trained my sons more strictly than the other apprentices. But I did so for the sake of their futures, not because I wanted to be mean to them. It’s something that I thought about from the beginning. Even if I were to be gone right now, I know they can go on. Yoshikazu just needs to keep it up for the rest of his life. That’s what is most important. He should just keep doing the same thing for the rest of his life.”

It seems to be a film about patience in every sense of the word. Yoshikazu’s patience for his inheritance, Jiro’s patience to work for 75 years, the patience of the apprentices to learn, first how to squeeze a hot towel, then how to slice fish, working steadily up the ranks.

Patience is something I am trying to learn. Certain things take a long time to achieve. If anything, this film shows, certain things deserve time. There are some things that can only be made with patience and time. Some things are bashed out in an instant, like a great pop song or a good sandwich. But other things, like your ‘life’s work’ need time. 

My mind is constantly split between different thoughts, modes, tasks and objectives. Jiro and the other chefs in his restaurant, have something I consider a luxury, the ability to have a singular vision, to commit whole heartedly to one thing. 

It seems perhaps characteristically Japanese, as the film introduces us to other characters with similarly specific missions, the rice dealer who refused the Grand Hyatt Hotel his best rice because he didn’t think they’d know what to do with it, and the tuna dealer who said he won’t buy any fish if he doesn’t find exactly what he wants, and who inspects the meat by squishing it between his fingers under the beam of a torch. 

At one point Yoshikazu talks to someone at a market about how young people don’t want to work these days. They discuss young apprentices quitting after one shift, how they just want to have lots of free time and don’t care about learning a craft. 

There has been a lot on social media in the last couple of years about my generation’s refusal to approach work in the established way. It’s an interesting question, whether my generation are right to demand greater respect, to expect more earlier on or if it’s the older generation who are right, you need to put up with some shit when you’re young in order to make progress down the line. But whether it’s fossil fuels or mental energy, we’re getting to know the value of things.

I don’t have an answer but I do think it’s worth noting where we are. Most young people I know will never own their own home and I saw someone saying the reason the birth rate is falling in the US is not because millennials don’t want kids but they can’t afford them. And in Japan ‘Salarymen’ are literally working themselves to death. Everything we’re seeing is telling us that even if we do work hard, those rewards that used to sit at the top of the mountain, will remain out of reach. 

There is a luxury to not knowing what you want to be. It’s a great thing that we can change our minds, drop things and pick things up and that we aren’t chained to the decisions we make about our careers and lives at seventeen years old. The algorithm often shows me a video of Stephen Fry saying, “Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then inevitably you will become it - that is your punishment.”

But perhaps there is a certain level that you can only reach after a lifetime of commitment to learning about something, of becoming totally fluent. Yoshikazu ends the film by saying, “Always look beyond and above yourself. Always try to improve on yourself. Always strive to elevate your craft. That’s what he taught me.”