RIP TMNT

Any job entails you do stuff you don't wanna do, and it gets more hands-on and gritty the further down the social chain you go. Being a chef, despite the celebrity status it is often given, is a blue-collar job. You don your uniform, scrub and wash and chop and work with your hands for long, unusual hours and weekends to serve the people with normal jobs. You are also occasionally faced with moral dilemmas.

Chefs in America cook food. Chefs in Japan prepare food, the preparation of which may or may not require cooking. This means you need fresh materials, and fresh means either extremely recently deceased or still living when you get ahold of it. One of the more gruesome tasks is dispatching turtles, which are made into a 鍋物 (one-pot dish), several of which have come our way recently. You have to cut off the head, slice up the still-moving body, clean the meat, and get it in the pot. The heart keeps beating until it is actually simmered, even when the turtle is in pieces. (You have to be careful of the head too, which can continue to bite for up to half an hour after you cut it off.) Octopus is another grisly job. Casually slaughtering an animal that may have lived up to 10 years or is estimated to have the intelligence of a 2-year-old isn't easy and may not even be right. I have pretty strong vegetarian tendencies and almost never prepare meat at home, and I'm pretty torn about how to take all this. I've taken the stand that I'm still the apprentice and need to know about this stuff, even if I decide not to do it or serve it when I break out on my own professionally; basically a suspension of decision. I also decided not to post the picture of the turtle seconds after it was killed. Turtle blood is as red as human blood.

お見上げ: Gift-Giving

Giving gifts of food is a pretty standard part of the Japanese society of 10 years ago and before. Recently it's tapered off, but if you go on a trip someplace and don't bring back a box of edible treats, preferably a famous brand specific to that region, then you're a tool. You also give or receive food gifts on the occasion of weddings, formally meeting new people, when moving into a new house, etc. The Japanese restaurant business is firmly entrenched in tradition and is built up on knowing people. This translates into tidbits or delicacies always laying about or being served up at meals, and unlike your average bean-filled bun or dry cookie, the people in the biz know good food and so give the best. Since I've started 5 weeks ago I've had eel sent from an eel farm, incredible 煎餅 (senbei, rice crackers), cakes, cookies, homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers (the cucs were like nothing you've ever had), various fish, and tonight some really freakin' good yakisoba, even though I normally don't touch the stuff. People also purchase stuff from the restaurant to give: sushi, ayu, soba, etc. A perk of the job is that you can impress the socks off someone by giving them a gift like a box of ayu and rice (that would normally cost $30 per fish) for cost. I did exactly this for my mother-in-law.

My Debut: 鱸薄造り (Thin Sea Bass Sashimi)

My restaurant serves fugu (pufferfish) and so I'm learning how to slice fish and plate it according to how fugu is done. The picture is what I did today. I cut it and plated it all by myself, Mom! It seemed to impress the bosses enough to talk about me starting to study for the fugu test in a year or two. For how simple sashimi looks, it really requires a lot of know-how and technique to make it look good. It's like sports; it looks effortless when a pro is doing it and it becomes obvious how difficult it really is when a rank beginner is at it. I'm pleased with myself today.

By the way, 鱸 (すずき、sea bass) is an excellent fish for sashimi. It has a firm texture, with almost a 'crunch' to it, and absolutely no 'fishy' taste. The one I did today was for us to eat; it was a gift from a server's father, who is a fishmonger.

All In the Family

Today Soba Master, Fugu Senpai and I went on a field trip to check out a new knife shop. I mentioned before that a restaurant has personal connection with a chosen knife store and buys all their knives from there, so it's a relationship coveted by said store. We're in the courting stage now. My school knives are laughable compared to the professional thing, so today's trip ended up in my ordering one custom knife and purchasing another 薄刃 (usuba, vegetable knife). The usuba set me back ¥24000, or about $240 USD. That's a mid-grade knife price; my superiors' knives run about $400 apiece. It's basically a training knife. You can see in the second picture how much bigger it is than my old knife. It's a 7.5 寸 compared to my old 6 寸 (寸, 'sun' is an old Japanese measurement still used by knife stores). It's also square-ended, which is Kanto style. My old one was Kansai style and it embarrassed me a little to use it in Tokyo.

I was really lucky to be invited along on this trip. Those who just walk into a shop will not get the best of the best; you have to be introduced properly with real connections, like in the Mob. One of the main reasons for me to go along today was to show my face and be introduced formally with the support of my restaurant. That counts more than money in these old-school circles.

Drinking on the Job

...is an integral part of the job of a counter chef, at least for the owner. Us scrubs rarely get in on the action unless a patron decides to buy a bottle for the whole house and call us all out for a toast.

The top chef's job is not just slicing and dicing, but entertaining patrons. You have to be good at conversation and be up on all the current events. It is vital to read a newspaper every day and know how to handle all sorts of people. The tables are a different matter, and they don't get the attention the people at the counter do. Smart diners will always opt to sit at the counter, as those are the ones that will get extra tidbits and special treatment. In return, it is traditional to pour a drink or five for your host. This ends up with your boss being drunk every night, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Concentrate on Being Natural

Japanese cooking is more about presentation than anything else, and the main focus is to make things look 'natural' and thrown together, even though there are strict rules for arranging food (盛り付け). For example, things should be presented in odd numbers and should be arranged slightly to the back of the dish, you use pottery in winter and ceramics in summer, a dish should face the direction that the signature on the bottom faces, etc. The most difficult thing is making a presentation looks like it was blown together elegantly by the wind and not touched by human hands. There is one dish I just can't get right; dark red fish is fanned out on one side of the plate and I have to make a little pile of sliced myoga (a kind of mild ginger) and soba no me (buckwheat sprouts) on the side. Both of these are slippery and tend to fall over. Then Fugu Senpai applies his chopsticks of power and suddenly the plates look great. Hmm.

鮎- Ayu (Sweetfish)

...are freakin' awesome. They are smallish fish traditionally caught by trained cormorants. The fish are attracted to fires lit on the boats. They are also very territorial and another method to catch them is to hook a live ayu and fish with it as bait; other ayu will attack it. That's pretty horrific, though I think the main way of getting them commercially now is by traps.

Anyway, they are a summer fish and usually salt-grilled. You see them at festivals on sticks, and are supposed to eat the whole thing, head, bones, innards and all. They are always skewered so it looks like they are swimming.

My restaurant does a different method, involving grilling and steaming and simmering and making the ayu super-soft, then serving them over flavored rice mixed with sauteed burdock and carrot. The leaves are tade, a bitter leaf that is often made into a violently green vinegar sauce. One of the best dishes I've eaten in my life was a single perfectly salt-grilled young ayu, so soft that the bones barely crunched, so well-shaped that it didn't lay flat on the plate but stood up on it's breast fins.

Dealing Death

Tip: The most delicious part of a fish is the little chunk of sweet soft boneless flesh in the cheek. Especially if it has been charcoal-grilled or simmered. I wonder if that's the reason that the guest traditionally gets served the head.

Fugu Senpai took the fugu test yesterday. In order to get certified to be able to off any customers who displease you by serving them bits of a poisonous animal, you have to take a rigorous test that includes a written exam and a timed practical. This will be his fourth or fifth try. Osaka is much more laid back about the fugu test and apparently hand out licenses left and right, but Tokyo takes it seriously. On the other hand, the Osaka license is good only for Osaka and the Tokyo one is good anywhere in Japan. Once you get it, you keep it for life with no more re-certifications. Prerequisites include already having a chef's license and 2 years experience in a place that serves fugu, plus a letter of recommendation from said place(s).

Anyway, we won't find out if he passed until the middle of October, which is absurd. How long does it take to tell if you're homicidal or not? Then again, I've slipped through the cracks this long...

Japanese Knives

I got a lesson in knife-sharpening today.

I love Japanese knives. When katanas became illegal to carry in Japan, many of the sword makers turned to making knives, which are just smaller versions of the swords. They are even sharpened the same way, using water stones (in contrast with the oil-and-stone method used for stainless knives). Japanese knives are made of carbon steel, which translates into an easily-warped edge that will rust within a couple of minutes of being in contact with water. That's why Japanese chefs are so particular about wiping their knives off all the time, every time they put the knife down. The wooden handles are also susceptible to mold and discoloration if not cared for and dried properly. But the edge can literally cut a mosquito in two.

A good restaurant will develop a personal relationship with a knife shop and buy exclusively from them. A good knife can range around $500 USD. They are big, heavy, and can cut with just their own weight, with little or no pressure applied. If you can sharpen them correctly. God-boss took a hour of his time today to demonstrate his way, and worked on correcting my knife edges, which were not straight. This is amazing. Most old-school restaurants wouldn't even allow you to sharpen your knives on the premise at all; you'd have to tote them home and do it on your own time. You'd think after 45 years of experience he'd be tired of doing something like teaching a rank beginner basic techniques. It's like Tom Morello dropping by to teach you a guitar slide.