A few days ago, I had the chance to observe a course on how to cut sushi and how to make sushi art! The courses were held at a sushi store in 半蔵門 called Sushi-katsu (鮨勝).

I didn't actually take the courses, I just observed. The student was a French man who came all the way from his hometown to study about sushi!

On the right in the image above is the student. This is a picture of when the master, on the left, brought out the fish that the student would cut later on. Before the student actually cut the fish, the master taught him the proper way to use a Japanese knife (和包丁) when cutting sushi. The student practiced on things such as paper and cardboard before he actually tried cutting the fish. One thing I learned is that when cutting fish with Japanese knives, you cut by pulling the knife towards you, while with western knives, you push the knife forward!

Another course that the student took was a course on sushi art! This was a fun course. A different teacher made the student make rolled sushi (巻き寿司) containing white rice, colored rice (pink), cheese, and cucumbers. The student cut the completed rolled sushi into a few pieces, and this is what the pieces looked like from the side:

TADAAAAA! It's a flower! Doesn't that look pretty? I actually ate this creation by the student, and it was delicious! Cheese may seem like a strange ingredient to use in sushi, but it actually went very well with the rice!

Since the courses were very long and lasted almost an entire day, we had an hour-long break in between. The master prepared a delicious meal for both the student and the observers to eat during this break:

This whole experience at the sushi store was good for me, because although I am Japanese, I spent a large portion of my life in the United States, and I am not that familiar with Japanese culture and cuisine. Through observing this class, I felt like I was able to get in touch with the culture of my home country just a little bit.

If you have any foreign friends who are interested in learning about Sushi, please tell them to check out this store! The master (who is a very friendly and nice person by the way) said he's thinking about holding more of these courses, and he's looking for students! Here is the Facebook page for the store : https://www.facebook.com/sushikatsu.ichibancyou?ref=br_tf

Even if you're Japanese, go check it out! It's right in front of Hanzomon station (about a 30 second walk from Exit #5!)

Anyways, thank you for reading about my experience.

If I have the chance to experience something interesting and rare like this in the future, I would love to report it to you guys through another column :)

-Mai