Brazilian chef wins World Sushi Cup in Japan
A Brazilian chef won the World Sushi Cup last week, bursting into tears of joy after his knife skills and artful preparation of salmon roe, tuna and shrimp delicacies wowed Japanese judges.
With the country’s UNESCO-recognized cuisine enjoying an explosion of global popularity, the competition — sponsored by Japan’s agricultural ministry — aims to improve sushi standards overseas.
Dressed in white coats and hats, 27 chefs from countries including France, Brazil, the US and Pakistan, nervously prepared fish and made traditional “Edo” style sushi, in tightly timed rounds.
Their techniques were closely watched and evaluated by a panel of Japanese sushi masters, with 20 chefs making it through to the finals on day 2, where they had to show off their own original styles of sushi.
“I had fun,” says cup winner Celso Hideji Amano, 38, a Brazilian of Japanese ancestry who shone in the traditional sushi-making round, before bursting into tears.
“It’s not an easy competition,” says Usman Khan, a 32-year-old Pakistani chef working at a branch of the prestigious Nobu restaurant chain in Cape Town, South Africa.
“You’re under a lot of pressure,” he adds on the first day of the competition.
The annual contest was first held in 2013 and Khan, who has competed twice and made it through to the finals this year, says it was a good challenge.
“What better way to test your limits by competing against other chefs in the same profession in Japan,” he says.
Khan first encountered sushi after he moved to South Africa from Kuwait 13 years ago.
“I couldn’t believe people could eat raw fish,” he says.
“I was disgusted initially, but I got intrigued.”
As of July 2015, there were 89,000 Japanese restaurants outside Japan, up from 55,000 two years before, according to the ministry.
But many establishments outside the country serve sushi without proper knowledge and skills, competition organizers say.
“Quite a lot of people are learning from the internet and books,” says World Sushi Cup chairman Masayoshi Kazato, who has worked as a sushi chef for more than four decades.
“Improvement of the level of cooking and hygiene through this competition — that’s what we’re aiming for,” he says.
One of the contestants, 31-year-old French chef Eric Ticana Sik, says his goal in participating was simply to learn more.
“We are one of the countries that eat the most sushi in the world, but there is really a lack of training,” he says.
“Only Japanese can teach us the basics.”
Sik, whose signature sushi brings together elements of Japan and France by combining salmon and brie cheese, says he wanted to meet other chefs from around the world to “discuss and share” views.
The origin of sushi dates back to the Heian Period (794-1185), when salted “funa” fish were fermented together with rice, according to the ministry.
The current style was developed in the Edo Period (1603-1867) when the public began using vinegar mixed with rice.