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Fiel a Verdad
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as ami reminds us, there are reasons for things being as they are.
Why are the city's sushi chefs virtually all men?
Published On Wed Apr 7 2010
By J. B., Food Editor
There are less than five, women chefs who prepare sushi, in one large Canadian city.
Their names are Yoshie Uematsu, Shoko Sakiyama and Mina Makimine. The first two are sous chefs at two, well-known uptown restaurants. The third is the chef at the Japanese consul-general’s official residence.
They are rarities because sushi-making is still a man’s world.
There are countless well-worn justifications why this is so. Women’s hands are too warm to handle raw fish or sushi rice. Their perfume, makeup and lotions interfere with the food. Hormonal fluctuations wreak havoc on delicate Japanese food.
Through a translator, Makimine says colleagues discuss “the biological differences which cause women, during their monthly cycles, to fall into different states that affect the delicate and sophisticated form of Japanese cooking.”
Sakiyama used to work with many women chefs in Osaka, but they stopped when they got married.
“In Japan, usually married women have to be at the home to take care of things.”
She arrived here five years ago to learn English and found a home at this particular restaurant one year later. She thinks there’s some merit to the belief that women have warm hands. “But my hands are always cold,” she quickly adds.
Things are slowly changing.
Shigeo Kimura, president of the Japanese Restaurant Association of Canada, wants to hire women to make sushi.
“Women are more creative. Women are more sensitive. I believe they are much better for sushi chef. But unfortunately we don’t have it — still the majority of sushi chefs in Canada are men.”
Men dominate in all restaurant kitchens, not just Japanese ones.
Japan is more open now, says Kimura, with multiple sushi schools, more female students, and a growing acceptance that there are different routes to becoming a sushi chef.
The restaurants' President and CEO Barry Chaim doesn’t care about gender.
“We care for kimuchi (soul or spirit). It is not the only characteristic, but the most important. I look for character before personality.”
His restaurants has been in the city for 23 years and 12 years, respectively. Only Uematsu and Sakiyama have progressed from helper, to cook, to chef and then to sous chef. One other woman, who was Chinese, made it as far as chef before leaving the business. Head and executive chefs have always been men.
Uematsu studied cooking in Osaka, specializing in pastries. She worked in restaurants, bakeries and hotels but not sushi spots, where women weren’t wanted and the grind wasn’t appealing. “For example, you just mix rice for two years, or every day vegetable peeling,” remembers Uematsu.
She came to Canada in 2001 and started the next year at the restaurant.
Sakiyama, meanwhile, started cooking in Osaka at izakayas (casual spots for drinks and meals) and hotels.
The restaurant's chefs work at the sushi bar and in the kitchen.
Makimine, too, makes more than just sushi. In July, she prepared dinner for the Japanese Emperor Akihito and his wife, Empress Michiko, on their royal visit to Canada.
Kimura, who married a Canadian and whose Canadian-born son now works at the restaurant (though not making sushi), suspects there are so few female sushi chefs here because the knife skills are so difficult, sushi restaurants “sometimes are very, very conservative, not open like the French or Italian style,” and because the job is so stressful.
“We are busy and it’s so much hard work. It’s really rushing to make the sushi. Sometimes there is a lot of stress — that might be difficult for women to handle. Sometimes we are screaming and yelling our heads off.”
Why are the city's sushi chefs virtually all men?
Published On Wed Apr 7 2010
By J. B., Food Editor
There are less than five, women chefs who prepare sushi, in one large Canadian city.
Their names are Yoshie Uematsu, Shoko Sakiyama and Mina Makimine. The first two are sous chefs at two, well-known uptown restaurants. The third is the chef at the Japanese consul-general’s official residence.
They are rarities because sushi-making is still a man’s world.
There are countless well-worn justifications why this is so. Women’s hands are too warm to handle raw fish or sushi rice. Their perfume, makeup and lotions interfere with the food. Hormonal fluctuations wreak havoc on delicate Japanese food.
Through a translator, Makimine says colleagues discuss “the biological differences which cause women, during their monthly cycles, to fall into different states that affect the delicate and sophisticated form of Japanese cooking.”
Sakiyama used to work with many women chefs in Osaka, but they stopped when they got married.
“In Japan, usually married women have to be at the home to take care of things.”
She arrived here five years ago to learn English and found a home at this particular restaurant one year later. She thinks there’s some merit to the belief that women have warm hands. “But my hands are always cold,” she quickly adds.
Things are slowly changing.
Shigeo Kimura, president of the Japanese Restaurant Association of Canada, wants to hire women to make sushi.
“Women are more creative. Women are more sensitive. I believe they are much better for sushi chef. But unfortunately we don’t have it — still the majority of sushi chefs in Canada are men.”
Men dominate in all restaurant kitchens, not just Japanese ones.
Japan is more open now, says Kimura, with multiple sushi schools, more female students, and a growing acceptance that there are different routes to becoming a sushi chef.
The restaurants' President and CEO Barry Chaim doesn’t care about gender.
“We care for kimuchi (soul or spirit). It is not the only characteristic, but the most important. I look for character before personality.”
His restaurants has been in the city for 23 years and 12 years, respectively. Only Uematsu and Sakiyama have progressed from helper, to cook, to chef and then to sous chef. One other woman, who was Chinese, made it as far as chef before leaving the business. Head and executive chefs have always been men.
Uematsu studied cooking in Osaka, specializing in pastries. She worked in restaurants, bakeries and hotels but not sushi spots, where women weren’t wanted and the grind wasn’t appealing. “For example, you just mix rice for two years, or every day vegetable peeling,” remembers Uematsu.
She came to Canada in 2001 and started the next year at the restaurant.
Sakiyama, meanwhile, started cooking in Osaka at izakayas (casual spots for drinks and meals) and hotels.
The restaurant's chefs work at the sushi bar and in the kitchen.
Makimine, too, makes more than just sushi. In July, she prepared dinner for the Japanese Emperor Akihito and his wife, Empress Michiko, on their royal visit to Canada.
Kimura, who married a Canadian and whose Canadian-born son now works at the restaurant (though not making sushi), suspects there are so few female sushi chefs here because the knife skills are so difficult, sushi restaurants “sometimes are very, very conservative, not open like the French or Italian style,” and because the job is so stressful.
“We are busy and it’s so much hard work. It’s really rushing to make the sushi. Sometimes there is a lot of stress — that might be difficult for women to handle. Sometimes we are screaming and yelling our heads off.”
