Tim Carman takes an old school sushi chef to lunch at one of those sushi roll candy stores that don’t even make their own rice to pick his brain about the future of sushi in America. According to chef Okochi, the outlook is bleak:
Driving Okochi’s concerns are a number of trends, almost all of which are out of his control. One, of course, is the economy, which forces many customers to seek dining options cheaper than sushi. Another is China’s newfound appetite for raw fish and how that affects the availability of fish, not to mention the long-term sustainability of fish stocks. Then there’s the issue of trained sushi chefs back in Japan: Apparently their interest in working in the United States is waning.
The good news is that there’s a sushi boom underway in Japan. The bad news is that fewer Japanese-trained sushi chefs are interested in working in the United States, and even if they want to come, it’s more difficult for chefs to emigrate today than it was in the 1980s.
It’s not that you have to be Japanese to be a great sushi chef, but sushi is an art form. Most great artists come out of vibrant scenes where eager students can study with great teachers and feed off the creative energy of their peers.
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