When you live in a Buddhist temple, you don’t get to choose what you eat. The surrounding land dictates what you grow. And what you grow, you eat.
For chef Junya Yamasaki, head chef at YESS in downtown Los Angeles, Japanese cuisine is about technique, philosophy, and history, not ingredients. When he arrived in Los Angeles and couldn’t get the fish he sent, he used his favorite technique, called ike jime and shinkei jime. , he taught local fishermen how to do it. With his teachings, he created a more efficient supply chain and got higher-quality fish in the region.
Raised in the countryside in Japan’s Hyogo Prefecture, Chef Junya grew up fishing with his father every weekend, enjoying the culmination of his own work. He painted for a few years in the Tokyo film industry when he was in his twenties, before he moved to Paris to study new art, motivated by a preference to create anything with his own hands. His culinary career began as a cafe waiter to earn some money while he read and then he had the opportunity to work as a cook in the kitchen. , he had the opportunity to move to London to manage the cafe’s new location.
In London, he was approached by a business wife to open a Japanese noodle place, Koya, which has become a cult spot. He made sure to source local British ingredients. “I grew up eating anything that looked like you,” she says. “It’s unusual for me to cook anything remotely. ” It was with the opening of this first restaurant that he established those rules of connection with the environment that would accompany him on his culinary journey.
After about five years at the helm of Koya, chef Junya returned to Japan and spent three months at Antaiji Temple, a Zen monastery, reading Zen Buddhism, to become more connected to religion, but because of the relationship between its core principles and Japanese cuisine. “When you’re told about the history of Japanese cuisine, you inevitably go back to the origins of Zen Buddhism,” he says.
In the temple, he was informed about the physical practice of seasonality. “You go to the supermarket and you know what to buy,” he explains. “But if you grow vegetables, it’s summer. . . you get each and every tomato. ” and every day, you get eggplants every day. . . You have to eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. ” He also cleaned and cut the meats that the locals hunted so that they would not go to waste. Chef Junya’s confidence that the Seasonality is one’s connection with nature comes from its lived practice.
Shortly after, Chef Junya would move to Los Angeles to open a dining spot with a new business partner. One of the first things he did when he arrived was to tour California to learn about the landscape and agriculture there and meet the farmers. He may have just realized that American agricultural practices were different. An upcoming trip to Whole Foods revealed that the fish came from Alaska and Chile; nothing was local. Visits to fish suppliers were also unsuccessful. “If that’s what they have here, then I can’t open a place to eat,” he remembers thinking. He learned that local restaurants sourced fish from Japan because the quality was better. “One of the reasons the food is wonderful in Japan is not just because of the chef, but also because of the entire industry. The chain of origin is very advanced,” he states.
It’s very different here, he noted: “You put the fish on ice [where it suffocates], then you come back and spend a few days. I don’t know when they will be published. Sometimes it takes more than a week.
He then began teaching local fishermen the ike jime and shinkei jime strategies for transporting fish. “I didn’t have to teach because I wanted to teach,” he says. “But I had no choice. “
Bailey Raith is a fisherman from Santa Barbara who exclusively uses the ike jime and shinkei jime strategies to ship fish. Since learning from boss Junya, Raith can rate 30% more consistency with capture. He now has an exconsistent in approach himself and passes on his training to other local fishermen.
Ike Jime Spikes produced via Raith
“The difference between an ike jime fish, shinkei jime and just a fish thrown into a fish box and bled to ice is astronomical,” says Raith, who runs San Ysidro Seafood. It’s “the quickest and most humane way to send a fish,” he explains. The procedure requires a T-tip (ike jime) to pierce the brain and a piece of stainless metal welding cord (shinkei jime) inserted into that same hole to disconnect the nervous system. Raith produces the equipment himself.
“It’s better. It smells better,” according to Raith, largely due to the lack of carbon dioxide buildup that would otherwise occur. The procedure also includes a much cleaner subsequent handling of the fish: chef Junya compares it to halal. “By staying in seawater, the blood doesn’t clot,” Raith says. Obviously, the procedure requires much more attention and care in keeping with the catch, so Raith catches far fewer fish than before making shinkei jime and charges more. “[I’m] cutting fewer resources from the ocean. And then there’s less waste in the kitchen because what I’m wearing lasts longer and deteriorates less quickly.
One of the disadvantages of local sourcing is that it is highly dependent on weather conditions. Chances are, many sushi restaurants will still source from Japan so they can count on a continuous supply of fish.
Bailey Raith of Mariscos San Ysidro
According to Chef Junya, the most important thing to train focus on is to create a market. So, before opening YESS, he spent his time introducing anglers like Raith to chefs who might be interested in buying from him, ditching the middleman supplier in the source chain. As Raith details: “There are a pair of human hands touching the fish from the moment it sticks to the moment it reaches the back door of a place to eat. » The two-Michelin-starred Providence in Los Angeles is a seafood eater that uses shinkei jime fish. Co-owner and chef Michael Cimarusti says, “If, by taking better care of their catch, anglers can get more than a pound value and make more money catching less, that’s the most productive outcome imaginable. “
“They’re all components of this chain of origin that Junya just instilled here in Southern California that didn’t exist before he got here,” Raith says. “He has been a strong advocate for fish transparency and direct marketing from fishermen to Southern California. Bosses. “
YEAH
The theme of Chef Junya’s YESS is attachment. With the menu constantly changing, visitors connect with the environment through what they can eat that day. Through the fish they eat, visitors connect with the waters of Southern California, as they likely did just hours before. “Seasonality is not something we choose. We will give it to you,” says Chef Junya. Through YESS’s izakaya-style open kitchen, chefs and consumers face each other, reinforcing transparency, a mirror image of the locally sourced chain it has transformed.
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