J-Gov't to certify real Japanese food

[Mulboyne]

[Behan]

Maybe not worthy of its own thread, but this story is yet another infuriating, but not altogether surprising, news story of a J-Gov't misdeed:

Ministry hid 90% of food-mislabeling cases
Kyodo News
The farm ministry uncovered 879 cases of mislabeled food products last year but only disclosed 110 of them in order to protect the companies responsible, according to documents obtained from the ministry Saturday.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20090607a1.html

[Doctor Stop]

Assholes.

[Greji]

Assholes.

Not at all. The other 110 cases were Chinese Gyouza...

[GuyJean]

[Taro Toporific]

The sushi police are back.

Japanese chefs head to Britain to stamp out Europe's second-rate 'pseudo sushi'
---Japanese chefs are to open a sushi school in London in an attempt to stem the spread of poor quality dishes which they say demean their country's prized cuisine---
26 Dec 2010 - Telegraph
Chef Hiroyuki Kanda crinkled his nose. "When I walk into a sushi restaurant in London, it always smells fishy," he said. "A sushi restaurant serving clean fresh fish should never smell like that."
Out of everyone, Mr Kanda should know: crowned with three Michelin stars for his sushi creations at his Tokyo restaurant, and the creator of a national Japanese textbook on sushi making, the chef is one of the world's leading experts on all things fish-related.
Now, Mr Kanda along with a string of leading Japanese sushi experts have declared war on so-called "pseudo sushi" in Europe – food which claims to be sushi in countless high street cafes, supermarkets and restaurants but in fact bears little resemblance to what is found in Japan...more...

[BigInJapan]

The sushi police are back.

I wonder what the sushi police think of fusion cuisine?



Masaharu Morimoto (of Iron Chef) fame is an award-winning Japanese chef, and he mixes and matches all kinds of bizarre food combos.
But, I guess if his restaurants don't smell "fishy", no puroburemu.

[Mulboyne]

The sushi police are back.

There's no doubt that sushi in Britain is often a pretty poor offering by comparison with Japan but I'm not sure Kanda has really identified what's going on. He says this:

"It may be that many Japanese people living in London work in sushi restaurants because it's an easy way to get a job, but they haven't trained correctly as chefs."

Not everyone working with sushi in a Japan is a trained chef either. Go to a cheap kaiten sushi and you'll find the kind of guys who could just as easily be working in a chain izakaya.

The British market is mostly about cheap sushi. Kanda might think the higher-priced restaurants are poor too but there's not much point in harping on about the cheap stuff if that's your target. To improve the standard of fare you find in supermarkets and takeaways, you need to teach the kind of process which works for cheap sushi in Japan. Your average Japanese part timer already has something of an understanding of raw fish but most low-skilled restaurant workers in a city like London are transient EU immigrants or Brazilians, Bangladeshis etc. It makes no economic sense for an owner to spend 18,000 pounds on training staff like that to the level Kanda wants. They just need to be as good as their Japanese freeter counterparts.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

The sushi police are back.

It's a bit rich for some to complain about gaijin despoiling Japanese culinary culture when they come from the land that invented such tasty treats as curry pan or corn, mayonnaise and potato pizza...

Having said that, most of the sushi I've ever eaten overseas has tasted bloody awful...

[Yokohammer]

It's a bit rich for some to complain about gaijin despoiling Japanese culinary culture when they come from the land that invented such tasty treats as curry pan or corn, mayonnaise and potato pizza...

Or yakisoba pan! Maybe it's just me, but the idea of stuffing carbohydrates into carbohydrates is just ...
Say, how about yakisoba pan with rice, and some fries on the side!

I've actually had some pretty decent, if not entirely authentic, sushi overseas. But I can assure you that if I walked into a sushi restaurant that smelled "fishy" I'd turn around and walk right out again. Kanda is right on that point.

[IparryU]

fishy smelling restaurants are just... nasty...

i have had some damn good (American) sushi in San Jose and SF. Fish is fresh, price was very nice, and service was by hot little j-girl

i will take a pass on sashimi though... not liking that shit.

[Mulboyne]

AP: Japan's sushi chefs to go on global training mission

Japan's sushi industry, concerned about the reputation of its national cuisine, will next month launch a certification campaign for foreign sushi chefs, an industry group said Monday. Similar campaigns to certify authentic sushi overseas have been criticised as an attempt to impose a "sushi police", but the All-Japan Sushi Federation says the latest effort is aimed at promoting hygiene. "Most restaurants overseas make sushi dishes in the same kitchen as those preparing meat," said Masayoshi Kazato, a leading sushi chef who has devised the certification system. "It gets unhygienic if you deal with raw salt-water fish in a kitchen without water running constantly for cleaning," he said.

The group, which represents sushi restaurants in Japan, plans to hold its first seminar in Singapore January 26-27 with similar seminars to be held in London, Los Angles and San Francisco next year. There is a mounting concern among sushi chefs in Japan that, if food poisoning repeatedly occurs in the world because of a lack of proper knowledge and techniques, sushi may get branded as dangerous food, Kazato said. "Japan created sushi 200 years ago to eat raw fish deliciously and safely when they did not have a refrigerator," he said. "I want professional chefs to know how much knowledge is needed if they want to serve raw fish."

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Japan's sushi industry, concerned about the reputation of its national cuisine, will next month launch a certification campaign for foreign sushi chefs, an industry group said Monday.

This has got to be one of the clearest examples I've ever seen of the Japanese being absolutely clueless about what goes on in the rest of the world.

Don't they realize what they're embarking on? This is like an Italian chefs' association going around to teach people how to cook spaghetti, or Americans giving hot-dog demonstatrations, or Brits showing how every food should be boiled and given a name like spotted dick.

I can understand the pride at an industry level, but it's simple national pride and I would say the average punter chowing down on their lunchtime negitoro or whatever couldn't give a flying fuck whether it tastes just like it's made in Japan as long as it does the right thing by the pallate.

[Greji]

or Brits showing how every food should be boiled and given a name like spotted dick.

You forgot that old Aussie favorite of poached puckered Platypus.....

[McTojo]

This has got to be one of the clearest examples I've ever seen of the Japanese being absolutely clueless about what goes on in the rest of the world.

Don't they realize what they're embarking on? This is like an Italian chefs' association going around to teach people how to cook spaghetti, or Americans giving hot-dog demonstatrations, or Brits showing how every food should be boiled and given a name like spotted dick.

I can understand the pride at an industry level, but it's simple national pride and I would say the average punter chowing down on their lunchtime negitoro or whatever couldn't give a flying fuck whether it tastes just like it's made in Japan as long as it does the right thing by the pallate.

This is definitely a wise move. It makes good business sense, too.

Establishing a certifying body that will monitor and offer training to sushi restaurants in North America and Asia makes perfect sense. Without any hard figures it's quite easy to assume that food trends in the world are steadily changing. Raw fish consumption is up and more people are acquiring a taste for uncooked seafood, this means demand will rise, as well as prices. What better overseeing body than a Japanese organization?

[Taro Toporific]

The sushi police are back.

[YT]UnnOj-v8Iig[/YT]

[Samurai_Jerk]

Zombie government revive zombie thread.

Sorry, Sushi Burrito: Japanese Program Certifies Authentic Cuisine

Out for dinner with a group of friends, Christina Dierkes, a science writer with Ohio Sea Grant in Columbus, was feeling adventurous. It took some steely courage to order the Caribbean Roll at Mr. Sushi's. Not so much for the tuna and avocado on the inside — that's a combination that's appealing to most of us. But the tuna sushi in this spectacularly Americanized roll is topped with a deep-fried banana, honey, mayonnaise and a generous dash of coconut crumbs. Yum?

'It wasn't awful," Dierkes says, adding that she pawned most of it off on her friends. "But why would anyone order that twice?"

Mr. Sushi isn't alone in its creative take on Japanese cuisine. Across America, sushi is getting reimagined, often in outlandish ways. We've got Big Mac sushi; sushi croissants; Nordic sushi; Cajun rolls; beef, bacon and melty cheese sushi, and perhaps the granddaddy of them all — the sushi-burrito — a delicious (or so my editor says) mash-up of hand-held burritos and rice-wrapped raw fish.

Isn't a sushi burrito just reinventing the futomaki?

A new program from the country's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will certify that Japanese restaurants operating outside the country uphold the values of traditional Japanese cuisine, known as washoku.

That cuisine is more popular than ever: There are now more than 89,000 Japanese restaurants that operate outside of Japan, up from 55,000 just two years earlier, according to the ministry. The U.S. alone is home to approximately 22,000 Japanese restaurants.

The program, which will launch soon, doesn't have an official English name just yet. At the Japanese embassy in Washington, D.C., it's being referred to as "Japanese Cuisine Skills Certification Guidelines."

[...]

The certification system will also help diners identify Japanese restaurants where chefs have undergone further culinary training in Japan — an option that, until fairly recently, wasn't available to most foreign chefs.

Until 2013, foreign chefs were legally barred from working in restaurants specializing in traditional Japanese food, so many of the skills and techniques closely associated with washoku were difficult for chefs to secure first-hand. For example, an Italian chef was allowed to work in an Italian restaurant in Japan, but not in a sushi restaurant. After winning UNESCO designation, however, Japan changed its regulations for foreign chefs.

That last part isn't entirely accurate. There was no ban on foreign chefs in Japanese restaurants but they couldn't get a visa to work in a Japanese restaurant as they couldn't be recognized as an expert in washoku.

[Coligny]

I see a yakuza esque scheme here...

Or a lot of hot air...

image.jpeg

I have this roundel on middle top of my windshield here without worries. Back home, not so much.
(Coat of arms of the French Republic)

The same way, plenty of small shops here have this logo without legitimity or consequences...
Which is a French certification/label/thing for "artisan" like some sort of reverse ISO... Which requires membership/training/yellow teeth...

image.jpeg

Can bet certification labels will be on ebay sticker's shops overnight...