Mutual Support, Debates & Great Ideas for Improving the OH Participatory Platform
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It’s a Monday afternoon in the Tsujkiji branch of the Tokyo Sushi Academy and we’re about to be put to the test. Or I am anyway. Most of the other students enrolled in the Japanese Culinary Intensive course are professionals. They are local or from abroad, just brushing up on skills or adding to their repertoire. My bench mate works charter yachts out of Australia. Our sensei, the chef Hiro Tsumoto, noticed a tattoo on his forearm with Japanese characters and called out: “Hey, that’s my aunt’s name!”
I’m among the civilians whom the academy also welcomes into the course. I’m here for the challenge, certainly. But in this moment, I’m feeling distinctly in over my head.
Mr. Hiro, who is also one of the academy’s founders, has been walking us through the basics of kaiseki, a word used for both the traditional multicourse Japanese meal as well as the skills and techniques required to make it. This involves talking about a bewildering range of things, including knife cuts for notching the top of a shiitake mushroom, how to knot a sprig of the herb mitsuba for garnish, as well as the precise temperature to best extract flavor for dashi broth made from kombu seaweed and katsuobushi, or dried bonito fish shavings. On the topic of kaiseki Mr. Hiro grows briefly philosophical, noting that it’s a lifetime practice and thus approaching the ineffable.
“Like the kappa. What actually is the kappa?” he says, by way of a winking explanation. “OK, let’s cook!”
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