A Japanese Mogul Called Out Sushi Chefs on Twitter

Like the hierarchical French brigade system before it, the sushi master system is at risk of becoming a caricature of rigidity.

Apprentices are relegated to making rice, and only rice, for years on end. They are are barely allowed to touch, or even look at fish during that period and meanwhile their mentors rack up Michelin stars and wax poetic about rice to documentary film crews. But with the recent worship of the sushi master happening at the same time as the rapid emergence of lowly conveyor belt sushi, the real question is whether the apprenticeship is really worth it.

No, thinks contrarian Japanese businessman Takafumi Horie, who sees this system as a racket which reinforces antiquated power structures, at the expense of super talented apprentices. According to RocketNews 24, Horie, who has over 1.4 million Twitter followers went on an epic Twitter rant earlier this week about the merits of sushi orthodoxy in response to an article defending the old guard of sushi masters.

"What a dumb blog. Good sushi restaurants these days don't take such a leisurely approach to their training. Isn't saying 'It takes three years to learn how to prepare the rice, and eight years to learn how to press it into nigiri sushi, behind the times?" the initial Tweet read, sparking a shitstorm for replies, many of which Horie was happy to address. And like most Twitter flamewars, it didn't take long for this one to degenerate into name-calling.

Twitter user @michiyotajima called out Morie by accusing him of oversimplifying the matter. "It's not enough just to press the rice into shape. The correct way to cook the rice, and how much water to use, varies by the season. That's something restaurant operators understand, but I want you to be aware of the fact that you don't know everything." Apparently Japanese Twitter allows way more than 140 characters.

Horie, once one of Japan's youngest ever billionaires and famous for outlandish comments, replied with a zinger: "That's obvious. But what I'm telling you, you ditz, is that if it takes someone years and years to learn how to do that, he's an idiot." Touché, Takafumi, touché.

But the Japanese entrepreneur and web portal creator who saw his fortune dwindle to a mere $280 million in recent years stayed focused on the sushi for the most part and fleshed out his culinary ideas in further tweets. "It seems like there are an increasing number of sushi fundamentalists who believe that unless you spend a lot of time, really your whole life, learning the techniques for forming the sushi and choosing the ingredients, then the final product won't be any good," he wrote.

In other words, Horie is saying that the whole damn system is a racket, which may sound a little extreme, but with the recent deification of the sushi master, he may be onto something. And speaking of rackets, Horie is eminently qualified to spot one—he spent two years and six months in Japanese prison for securities fraud.