Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Today my topic is sushi. I think I was a university student when I first tasted sushi. When I grew up it was considered a delicacy for the richest of the rich, in the same league as caviar and oysters. Before you know it there were sushi bars everywhere with chefs preparing it before your eyes for entertainment and put it on a seemingly never ending rotation strip with various sushi delicacies. Nowadays you see this not only in high end restaurants but also at your local grocery store. Sushi has become mainstream. A friend even invited us to a sushi making party at her home once (thanks Adri).
I like sushi. But after yesterday I realize that I cannot really say that I love sushi. Because I was introduced to a man that does. His name is Jiro and I got introduced to him through the 2011 Netflix documentary film Jiro dreams of sushi. See, Jiro is a sushi chef in Tokyo, Japan. He owns his own restaurant, a very small one that only has 10 seats at a subway station. At the time of filming Jiro was 85 and still working a full day, every day like only a Japanese can. Doing what? Making sushi. Jiro’s life revolves around sushi. He has been at it for 70 plus years now. He indeed dreams of it at night. He lives for it. His life revolves around it. You have to book a month in advance at his restaurant and you will pay 270 USD for a twenty piece taste meal, the only kind he serves. He trains new chefs for ten years before he recognizes them as proper chefs. He still feels there is much room for improvement even though his restaurant has been awarded three Michelin stars. His son at age 50 is second in charge and marked to take over from him. His other son opened a replica sushi restaurant elsewhere in Japan.
See, Jiro loves sushi. His devotion to it as well as the joy that devotion brings him for so long makes this undeniable. Sushi has become over time his ultimate and only form of self expression.
Leonard Sweet taught me that often, the more local something is, the more goal and universal its meaning. On the surface I have absolutely nothing in common with a sushi chef in Japan. But his life speaks to me probably because he so single mindedly devoted himself to one avenue of being a chef in a specific place.
In the movie a Japanese restaurant connoisseur who claims that Jiro’s restaurant is the best he has ever been to, explains what makes a great chef and how Jiro Ono meets them all. I was struck how his list slightly adapted, could also be a good way to describe a good flower of Jesus. Maybe not exhaustively, but on point still. The traits are:
- A strong work ethic. Good chefs take their work seriously. They can prioritize it above their own needs and wants because to work hard and excel in it is one of their biggest needs and desires.
- They seek to constantly self improve. They always ask themselves how they could have done it better, even when the accolades and praise for their work is dished out generously.
- Cleanliness. A kitchen that is worked in will always have it share of spills and messes, but a good chef has a hand on that and cleans up often and thoroughly. Even good food will not be appreciated if prepared in a dirty environment.
- Impatient. This doesn’t mean they are moody (although good chefs often are). It means that the maintain high standards and cannot rest until things are as close as they can possibly be to attaining that standard.
- Passion. If a chef loves what he do, it becomes a magic ingredient in what he or she serves. It is like people can taste it. Loving something has a way to draw out love in others for that thing.
I think of the most inspiring Christians I have known and look up to. They were all extremely hard workers but not the kind that are motivated by outshining others or money but by passion and the desire to contribute and make their lives count for God’s purposes. They never gave me the impression that they arrived. They kept their lives clean and took time to do that when they made a mistake. They generously confessed their shortcomings and remained eager to learn from others and improve. They had a holy discontent with many things because they drew inspiration from a godly vision of how things could and should be. And yes, they all struck me as people of passion. We are all lovers before we are anything else, its just some seem to have embraced this fact more than others and demonstrate it in a way tat makes one want to become a better person.
Like Jiro One, there are things we are called to do over and over and better and better. When we do that, we make the world a better place and ourselves better persons. We rub of on others in a beneficial way and leave a legacy. We are to embrace a capacity and tolerance for holy discontent with things that aren’t as they should be without thinking it is up to just ourselves to make them better. We should convert such an intolerance to dedicated action in the form of service to others.
The project that is your life is hard work, unfinished but also a gift of love wrapped in the hope that it will inspire loving service to others in you.
And whether you serve ten twenty or two thousand people with that is less important than you going about it wholeheartedly for the audience of One.
Gabriel J Snyman
February 2nd 2021