I am a sushi fan.
Today it occurred to me, as I left the sushi bar after another superb lunch, that in all my years of eating sushi, at sushi bars all around the DC area, in New York, in San Francisco, and elsewhere in the great US of A… I have never once seen a female sushi chef.
Have I just had bad rolls of the dice? Can it be that this profession is more resistent to gender integration than all others?
Where are the sushi women?
I understand that there’s a long-standing legend that women’s hands are warmer and thus not as suited to sushi-making.
Considering that my mom, my sister, and every one of my exes has used the back of my neck as a handwarmer in winter (and women in Western kitchens often wind up in the pastry section because their hands are thought to be colder), I think I can say that this is crazy talk, but the legend goes around nonetheless.
Many years ago there was a woman, named Opal of all things, who made sushi at a little place in Baltimores’ Fells Point neighborhood. The name of the restaurant escapes me right now.
This may be of interest:
My hands are female (as is the rest of me) and permanently ice cold. I don’t know many other women with warm hands, for that matter. Is it possible that it’s yet another made-up story to keep girls from doing cool stuff? Surely one of you guys will be willing to hold hands with a bunch of Japanese girls in the name of science…
There’s one at a place we go to here in San Diego. It’s not a high profile place, but has a very good word-of-mouth reputation. The staff is all Japanese, as far as I can tell.
The only women I’ve seen working at a sushi bar were naked.
There’s usually one man and one woman making sushi in the place near me. Of course it’s the kiosk in the grocery store, so that may mean something.
The restaraunt I eat sushi at has both a man and woman behind the bar but, thinking about it, it’s always the male that makes the sushi. The woman does all the other dishes and seems very much his assistant.
Of all the things I have thought of that I have never seen a woman perform in publix. Sushi making just doesn’t make the list.
I met one female sushi chef, and she told me it’s traditionally a role for men. Didn’t mention anything about the hand temperature, that I can recall.
A friend of mine actually refused to sit down at a place that had a female sushi chef. I asked him what the big deal was, and he said “It’s just not done!”. Now, I understand the reasoning behind it, but you won’t find me looking for another place to have sushi because there’s a woman behind the bar.
Wouldn’t that be a health code violation?
The sushi chef at my local Market of Choice is a woman. I haven’t ever noticed much of a gender slant, but then I don’t go out for sushi much.
No, they consider it professional courtesy.
The only places around here where I’ve seen women preparing the sushi are either take-out shops or fast food restaurants (all the fish is packaged pre-cut and they have a machine that presses the rice in just the right shape and adds a dollop of wasabi. Kinda fun to watch).
The local sushi place I go to is entirely run by women. Including the rolling of the sushi.
It tastes pretty good to me.
In my town we had a female sushi chef. She took over from male chef who started the restaurant and then left to start a new one.
The sushi place in Azabu-Juban (next to the Wendy’s, not on the street we go to Yakinikuen) has women sushi chefs. It’s somewhat a-typical, though. I certainly don’t recall seeing any other women making sushi.