For those moviegoers who are hopelessly food-obsessed, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” will no doubt leave some viewers yearning for a bit more, but maybe that’s to be expected. After all, with more than 75 years of experience in the kitchen, 85-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono has developed a wealth of culinary knowledge that probably exceeds that of anyone before him, and arguably exceeds that of anyone in the present day. With so much culinary expertise at the core of the film, those who cook for a living, or even those who qualify as serious home gourmets, will almost certainly become fixated by the ingredients and techniques in “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” (these are the same viewers, no doubt, who will instantly recognize Joël Robuchon during the film’s opening sequence).
If you’re at all like me, you’ll spend much of the movie wishing that there was more explanation from the kitchen at Sukiyabashi Jiro, Ono’s famed 10-seat Tokyo sushi bar. I craved more theory, and more insight. At other times during the film, you might even daydream about a quick trip to Japan for the 20-minute, 30,000-yen lunch, as I did. And during the more inspiring segments, you may even briefly consider the cost-benefit ratio of a 10-year apprenticeship under a sushi master, the ultimate plunge. However, for most normal people, for those with just a casual interest in cooking or eating, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” will simply offer its viewers a sufficient and engaging glimpse into the mysterious subculture of the shokunin.
• • •
For better or worse, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” portrays its subject in rather broad strokes, focusing exclusively on the relationship between fathers and sons, chefs and vendors. Granted, these relationships are the heart and soul of the movie, but with barely even a nod to the role of the women in Ono’s life, the “human” aspect of the documentary does feel slightly incomplete and under-researched at certain times. As the film addresses Ono’s childhood, for instance, the great shokunin implies that his father had succumbed to alcoholism early on, but Ono never offers any information about his mother. The audience is left to wonder.
Perhaps we can assume that, living in Japan more than 80 years ago, Ono’s mother was powerless to do much about her own situation, but if Ono was essentially orphaned at age nine, where was she? And where did he go? These types of questions can become somewhat distracting when left unanswered (or unasked). Perhaps Ono didn’t care to address his mother — at least tell us that much. An even more glaring omission is the fact that the film mentions almost nothing about Ono’s wife, except that she seems to have raised his two sons — and stretched a meager income — while Ono spent countless hours perfecting his craft.
Of course, I’m not claiming that Ono’s wife should be the hero of the story, but “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” fails to even mention if she’s still alive or not, and she could’ve certainly added a unique perspective to the documentary, even if their marriage was indifferent (again, I’m merely assuming). On the other hand, one could ultimately argue that the film’s limited perspective is the simple reflection of Ono’s male-dominated universe: Not only does traditional Japanese culture skew towards the chauvinistic, but the culinary world does as well. One might also argue that Ono was “married” to his profession. Either way, considering that the documentary was directed by a Westerner, 28-year old David Gelb, I still say that “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” needed a bit more backstory.
Despite these general criticisms, however, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” does succeed in several other areas, and it features several transcendent moments of culinary bliss. In terms of its general cinematography, the film’s heavy color saturation can be borderline pornographic at times, especially during the akami close-ups. I’m all for it, however. Without the benefit of smell and taste, the sushi has to appear extra-appetizing in order to convey its real-life deliciousness.
Aside from the film’s amazing culinary footage, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” also provides the audience with far more laughs than one might expect from this type of documentary. As a devout perfectionist, Ono remains steadfastly serious and passionate about his profession, yet he often reveals an impish charm that compliments his sage wisdom. Many people, even Japan’s top food critics, seem intimidated to dine at his restaurant, yet on camera and behind the scenes, Ono seems engaging, approachable, and eminently hospitable.
On a more serious note, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” also scores points for addressing the issue of over-fishing, a subject which is actually becoming tantamount to Ono himself. As the quality of fish declines, the quality of sushi will continue to suffer. Indeed, the startling black-and-white footage of yesteryear’s massively-sized bluefin tuna should be equally as alarming as the enormous mountain of styrofoam outside of today’s Tsukiji fish market.
Slow Food Napa Valley hosted its inaugural holiday cookie exchange at the Silverado Brewing Company this week, and the spoils are pictured above. Recipes will be posted online soon. Happy holidays!
Tuesday, December 13th 5:30 — 7:30 pm Silverado Brewing Company
SFNV invites its members to share their favorite holiday cookies while meeting other members, sipping Domaine Chandon bubbles and Silverado Brewing Company beer.
We will have a contest for the “group favorite” cookie and the “most local” cookie (those entering their cookie in the “most local” category must list all local ingredients on the recipe). Prizes will be awarded in both categories!
To join the festivities, simply bring 2-3 dozen of your favorite cookie, plus 20 copies of the recipe (please do not put your name on the recipe — the cookies will be tasted anonymously). In the event that any cookies are left over, please bring a container to take home some extras.
After deciding on your favorite cookie, stay for dinner at the Silverado Brewing Company! 20% off your dinner if you are a member of Slow Food Napa Valley.
This event is FREE, but in order to help us plan accordingly, please RSVP at Brown Paper Tickets by Monday, December 12th.
Reminder: A membership to SFNV makes a great holiday gift! You will be able to renew and buy new memberships at the event.
Food Day seeks to bring together Americans from all walks of life — parents, teachers, and students; health professionals, community organizers, and local officials; chefs, school lunch providers, and eaters of all stripes — to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way. Food Day is in partnership with Slow Food USA and the Napa Local Food Advisory Council. Please click the image for a larger view of the flyer.
Slow Food Napa Valley hosted a pig roast and potluck this September, in conjunction with Ehlers Estate in St. Helena. The following photos highlight the event, which provided a forum for SFNV members to discuss the future of SFNV, and how they can help to increase interest and awareness of the Slow Food movement. Naturally, the brunch was amazing. Please click on any photo for a full-screen view.
• • •
Pig cracklins, up close.
• • •
CIA instructor Patrick Clark carves the Mulefoot Hog, which was provided by Michael Fradelizio of the Silverado Brewing Company and Beer Belly Farms.
• • •
Michael Fradelizio (left) and Patrick Clark (right) remove the pig from the Caja China roasting box. A hungry crowd gathers.
• • •
A look at the just-finished pig inside the Caja China.
• • •
The Mulefoot hog, just a couple hours into cooking.
• • •
The Ehlers Estate line-up. Delicious.
• • •
Ehlers winemaker Kevin Morrisey (far left) talks shop with SFNV members.
• • •
The Ehlers Estate tasting room, built in 1886.
• • •
Debbie Fradelizio (left) and Corrie Beezley (right) greet SFNV members as they arrive for the potluck with baskets in hand.
• • •
One very impressive apple pie.
• • •
A beautiful honeycomb and cheese platter from Marshall's Farm.
I suspect that in middle America — and perhaps anywhere else the Western world — most people would assume that the French have cemented their reputation as the world’s culinary avant garde. It’s certainly a fair assumption. Not only have the French enjoyed an enviable culinary tradition for the last two centuries, but Western pop culture has reinforced this idea again and again. The notion of sophisticated French cuisine has become an enduring cultural archetype both here and abroad, as seen recently in movies like 2007′s “Ratatouille,” or even going back 20 years prior, to the Danish film “Babette’s Feast.” Within the media, French cuisine has been portrayed as the Western standard for decades now, and pop culture has continued to reinforce this hierarchy. Even one of America’s earliest and greatest culinary icons, Julia Child, had deep roots in French cuisine.
But for those who have been following culinary trends for the last 10 years, the center of culinary relevance has slowly shifted outside of France. As author Michael Steinberger points out in his book “Au Revoir to All That,” several factors have contributed to France’s declining culinary influence, including the nation’s poor economy and its general complacency, the rise of chef Ferran Adriá and Spain’s nuevo cocina, the increased competition of fine wine from the New World, and the recent “franchising” of French chefs in overseas markets, such as Las Vegas and New York. Of course, based upon its long history of culinary contributions, France will still continue to enjoy a large stake in the game, but its chip count has steadily eroded over the years, and perhaps for good.
With each chapter, “Au Revior to All That” delivers an insightful analysis of the French malaise, supported with thoughtful and compelling research. Steinberger also provides many terrific first-hand anecdotes along the way, making the text both approachable and engaging. What surprised me the most, however, was a statistic in the book’s seventh chapter, titled “Fast-Food Nation,” in which Steinberger reveals that France has become the single-biggest market for McDonald’s outside of America. Talk about undermining some deep-seated stereotypes — the French have actually embraced the Golden Arches? While it may still be true that most Westerners might still give France the benefit of the doubt when it comes to gastronomy, in reality, globalization seems to have cost France far much more than it has gained.
America’s growing fascination with wine has fueled an increasing interest in all sorts of topics that might’ve seemed superfluous only 10 years ago. Just consult a set of wine notes from the average Napa Valley winery, and you’ll discover data relating to everything from barrels to brix, to pH levels, to harvest dates, to clonal selections. In any area of interest, the true enthusiast will always embrace the minute details, whether that topic is wine, baseball statistics, or Star Trek episodes. But I will say one thing about some of these oenological facts and figures: if you’ve taken a genuine interest in the pH level of the wine you’re swirling, then you’re more than just a wine drinker — you’re pretty far gone.
Of course, many people never concern themselves with any of the technical aspects of winemaking. I feel that to some extent, ignorance is bliss, especially when wine can be appreciated without some requisite evaluation. But for those folks who cannot drink wine without dissecting it, without trying to guess the percentage of malolactic fermentation in Chardonnays, or without sniffing for hints of Cabernet Franc in a classic Bordeaux blend, then Steve Heimoff’s “New Classic Winemakers of California” offers some revealing and insightful interviews.
In many ways, “New Classic Winemakers” presents a fairly current state-of-the-union for California’s fine wine industry. Along the way, Heimoff addresses several hot-button topics during his interviews, including wine’s recent rise in alcohol level, a phenomenon that is sometimes justified, but rarely embraced. To his credit, Heimoff also inquires about removing alcohol after-the-fact, which is one the wine industry’s dirty little secrets (google “spinning cone column” to learn what no winemaker would personally care to admit). Of course, Heimoff does not elicit any scandalous confessions in his book, but at least the author has the gumption to address the issue.
Even in the modern age, discussions with winemakers are also bound to contain some heavy doses of philosophy, and Heimoff succeeds in drawing out some cerebral discussions of terroir, which help to strike a balance with the technical digressions. Even so, “New Classic Winemakers” is definitely geared towards a niche audience, and therefore my recommendation is astonishingly simple: If you recognize the names of some of the winemakers in this book, then there’s a good chance that its contents may interest you.
During my first six weeks of culinary school, I spent many afternoons trolling the campus storeroom, trying to learn the differences between things like ginger and galangal or radicchio and red cabbage. The sheer inventory of the CIA storeroom was impressive: A veritable dungeon, it was stocked with foodstuffs ranging from the exotic to the mundane, all of which would become the raw-food materials for 18 different kitchen-classrooms on campus. As new culinary students, we were expected to visit the storeroom as part of a class called Product Knowledge (the class final itself — a line-up of about two dozen fruits and vegetables — would be culled from the storeroom’s very shelves).
One of the most challenging tasks was to identify the litany of salad greens in the walk-in: mache, shiso, watercress, mizuna, mustard, little gem, frisée, arugula. Depending on how far someone had lived from a decent farmers market, many of these items could have been completely unknown to some students. Fortunately for me, I did have the benefit of growing up in California, so I at least had some basic familiarity with things like arugula and frisée. However, some of the other greens were more esoteric, and they demanded closer attention.
After I finished chef school — just 21 months later — I hastened my retreat to the Napa Valley, where the produce became even more dynamic (light years beyond Hyde Park, in truth). Once back in California, I landed a job at Auberge du Soleil, whose easy-going kitchen manager ordered the very best produce with free-wheeling abandon. It was an eye-opener: Auberge would have every type of heirloom tomato, every type of wild mushroom, every type of whatever-was-seasonal.
In keeping with trends, Auberge naturally embraced microgreens, those barely-sprouted versions of common plants like arugula, spinach or beets (the bull’s blood beets were the best). Amazingly, I had onbly seen microgreens once or twice in chef school, where they were presented mostly as a curiosity (in a small, plastic clamshell container, no less). In contrast, microgreens were one of the de riguer garnishes at Auberge du Soleil, where we carefully snipped them from large nursery flats every afternoon just before service.
• • •
Over the years, it’s occurred to me that in its basic, fully-mature form, arugula has fast become the iceberg lettuce of today: somewhat quaint in its ubiquity, an all-too-common garnish for a grilled chicken-breast sandwich (granted, arugula is far more nutritious than iceberg lettuce, which is nice). Yet, I can clearly remember a time when, not too long ago, arugula had plenty of novelty and cache, even here in California. Servers always used to describe arugula as “peppery” to those who inquired about it — these days, no one even has to ask anymore, do they?
In “The United States of Arugula,” David Kamp happens to use this leafy green as his metaphor, documenting America’s remarkable gastronomic shift over the last 70 years. The book explores our sociology to a large extent, drawing clear connections between our increased industrialization and our tendency to relegate eating as a necessity more than a pleasure. “The United States of Arugula” pinpoints where we had gone wrong and what ultimately inspired our steps in the right direction.
Kamp begins his food history at the very beginning, when pizza and sushi were still relative unknowns, long before they earned “comfort food” status here in America. The book follows the early days on the East Coast, when the “Big Three” of American cuisine — James Beard, Juila Child and Craig Claiborne — became the nation’s taste-makers. Naturally, during the latter half of the book, the focus shifts to the West Coast, with a detailed and frank history of Alice Waters and the many Chez Panisse alumni.
For the food enthusiast, “The United States of Arugula” is resplendent with entertaining footnotes, and Kamp has clearly researched his topic thoroughly. Originally published in 2006, the book touches upon the recent rise of the Food Network, as well as the recent trend towards “franchising” in Las Vegas. In many ways, “The United States of Arugula” is yin to the yang of Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” — while the latter book reveals how food in America has gone awry, the former book illustrates a few of those things that have gone well.
The term “noble rot” has long been a secret handshake among wine connoisseurs, an English translation of the French pourriture noble, or what biologists would officially call “botrytis” (and even more officially, Botrytis cinerea). At its essence, “noble rot” is a benevolent fungus, critical to the production of many of the world’s top late-harvest wines. Botrytis appears in the fall — with the onset of humidity in the vineyard — helping to concentrate the sugar levels in the grapes as it facilitates dehydration. For this reason, the words “noble rot” are often synonymous with the Bordeaux region of Sauternes, the legendary home of the world’s most expensive dessert wines.
Given its title, one might assume that “Noble Rot” is limited to the realm of Sauternes, but William Echikson’s book actually provides a survey of the entire Bordeaux region, from the upstart garagistes to the most famous chateaux. Echikson presents a revealing portrait of the region, which has only recently begun to feel the effects of the globalization of wine. These changes have ushered in a new era of modernity in Bordeaux, creating a growing niche for high-priced winemaking consultants, as well as a new market for French cult wines.
With the advent of globalization, “Noble Rot” also examines the recent American influence in Bordeaux, especially that of übercritic Robert Parker, who established his reputation with the legendary 1982 vintage, and who has continued to influence tastes on both sides of the Atlantic. Depending upon whom you ask, Parker is equal parts hero and villain in Bordeaux, although the region itself features plenty of its own home-grown controversy. In some cases, this controversy has garnered a public forum, and “Noble Rot” also details the region’s most infamous family feud, a bitter legal battle that lead to MHLV’s hostile purchase of the legendary Chateau D’Yquem in 1996. Among this recent context of courtrooms and multimillion dollar lawsuits, the term “noble rot” certainly assumes a whole new meaning today.
In April, Slow Food Napa Valley hosted its first event of 2011, “A Tail of 2 Pigs,” at the Culinary Institute of America, Greystone. Nicolette Hahn Niman, author of “Righteous Porkchop” was the guest speaker at the potluck event. If you missed it, the turn-out was fantastic (thank you for your support). And yes, the food and wine was clearly abundant. Click on any photo for a full-screen view.
Nicolette Hahn Niman (far right) discusses her book, "Righteous Porkchop."
• • •
• • •
• • •
• • •
• • •
• • •
• • •
• • •
• • •
Yes, please.
• • •
Slow Food Napa Valley board members Michael and Debbie Fradelizio.
