The Sweet Reason Masaharu Morimoto Wanted To Become A Sushi Chef

There are few celebrity chefs that have done as much for the reputation of Japanese cuisine on the global stage as Masaharu Morimoto. Morimoto got his start at Nobu, the popular New York City eatery that fused Peruvian and Japanese culinary styles to create something entirely new. He would then go on to star as one of the Iron Chefs on the original Japanese program, and later on Iron Chef America, via Iron Chef Morimoto.

He then used that heightened celebrity to build a restaurant empire that spans the globe. He currently has 19 restaurants in operation, including his flagship Morimoto in Philadelphia, that fuse the precise and balanced Japanese cooking techniques he first learned with other cultural influences.

None of this would have been possible though without Morimoto's original training as a young man living in Japan. Morimoto has seen some unexpected turns in his path to this point, but his decision to initially train as a sushi chef came from a very wholesome place.

According to an interview Morimoto gave to Outlook Traveller, as a young man, he had two dreams for his future. His first dream, however, had nothing to do with the world of food. Instead, Morimoto was focused on becoming a professional baseball player. Morimoto says that a harmful shoulder injury crushed his first dream, but he already had his second dream to fall back on.

Worthly reports that when Morimoto was a child, his family would often celebrate significant occasions by going to sushi restaurants. This gave him the impression that sushi chefs were people whose job was to create joy for other people. These happy memories implanted in him and gave him the idea to become a sous chef by training in sushi, via Outlook Traveller.

The art of becoming a sushi chef is no small task either. According to Highsnobiety, becoming a sushi master takes roughly 10 years of training under intense conditions. Morimoto would choose to start his training in his hometown of Hiroshima. Per Outlook Traveller, Morimoto trained in a sushi restaurant for only seven years before he was able to break out on his own and fulfill his dream of starting his first restaurant.

Sushi has played several different cultural roles in its long history. Eat-Japan says that while sushi is considered Japanese, it was initially created in China around the fourth century B.C. It then likely made its way to the island nation with the practice of Buddhism around the ninth century, per PBS. This original type of sushi is not what we would think of as sushi today. It was originally created to preserve fish by letting it ferment while surrounded by rice. This is similar to the modern type of sushi known as Narezushi which can still be enjoyed today. 

PBS reports that as sushi moved to Edo (the city that would become Tokyo), pioneering food cart salesmen began selling fresh fish over vinegared rice, and created the first nigiri sushi. This sushi was sold as street food and a type of fast food. All that was needed to serve a customer was to shape the prepared rice and slice the fish. Production would later be moved indoors, and as the art of sushi grew more refined, Japan-Guide.com says it would become a meal for special occasions like those celebrated by Morimoto's family.