JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI... and David Gelb changes how people eat it

Director David Gelb’s documentary about a tiny, austere sushi joint and its perfectionist chef defined a food-film style... and set off an international omakase craze. Gelb tells Rico the story, and also how he gets his kids to eat escargot (or at least try it).

Just in time for holiday eat-a-thons, the award-winning MUBI Podcast is back and celebrating its tenth season with a four-course serving of stories about food on film. Titled "A Feast For The Eyes," the season digs into the ways filmmakers use food to provoke hunger, thought, nausea, political action...and sometimes all the above.

Joining host Rico Gagliano is a sampler platter of luminaries from the film and culinary world, including directors Brad Bird (RATATOUILLE), Mira Nair (MONSOON WEDDING), and David Gelb (JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI), former New York Times food writer Alison Roman, and more. Gluttons for great cinema stories can start chowing down on episodes weekly, starting Thanksgiving Day.

Let's Eat! Food and Film collection is now streaming on MUBI globally.

JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI is now streaming on MUBI in the Netherlands. 

WINTER IN SOKCHO is now streaming on MUBI in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Latin America, India. and Turkey. 

To stream some of the films we've covered on the podcast, check out the collection Featured on the MUBI Podcast. Availability of films varies depending on your country.

MUBI is a global streaming service, production company and film distributor dedicated to elevating great cinema. MUBI makes, acquires, curates, and champions extraordinary films, connecting them to audiences all over the world. A place to discover ambitious new films and singular voices, from iconic directors to emerging auteurs. Each carefully chosen by MUBI’s curators.

Transcript

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Warning, this episode includes shellfish, soy products and spoilers. So, back in the early '00s, a guy named David Gelb, fresh out of USC film school, started hanging out at a legendary LA restaurant. Sushi Nozawa, which now is known as Sugarfish and has expanded into this chain. He wasn't there just to eat, though that was definitely a plus. He also thought its namesake, Chef Nozawa, might be the perfect subject for a documentary. He was an old sushi master in Los Angeles, in Burbank, and it was like, he was known as the Sushi Nazi, in direct reference to the <i>Seinfeld</i> Soup Nazi. Only in the sense that they are like,"You have to eat at my way or no way,"or get out of my restaurant." Yeah, Nozawa would kick you out for talking on your phone, for texting, for switching seats. And you definitely didn't tell him what kind of sushi he should serve you. You know, they allow no choice. It was just so cool, the idea that he didn't care if you were a celebrity or not. Nozawa didn't care. He just wanted to make his great sushi his way and all over the walls of the restaurant, there were all these posters and illustrations and various iterations of the word"trust me". That was his slogan, "trust me". In a city full of joints serving spicy tuna rolls, Nozawa was one of the few serving, barely adorned, minimalist sushi, <i>omakase</i> style. Chef's choice. It was the first kind of <i>omakase</i> that was kind of known in Los Angeles, at least, that I knew about, and you would have it his way. It's about "trust me". But I loved his stoicism, and I did a little short kind of camera test with him that ended up being a very fun short film. Four in the morning, going to the fish market, getting the best stuff.

He goes to bed at 11: 1:48

30. He has no energy for riff raff. And so it's just like, you eat it my way or get out. I just love that. And yet the Nozawa short never became a full length documentary, because... I found the ultimate of that which is Jiro, who is like, embodies that philosophy, to the nth degree. In 2010, David Gelb found an even more stoic chef, serving even more minimal food, and made a documentary about him that put <i>omakase</i> on the menu all over the planet. I'm Rico Gagliano, welcome back to the MUBI Podcast. MUBI's the global film company that champions great cinema. On this show, we tell you the stories behind great cinema. We're in the middle of season 10. We are calling it A Feast For The Eyes. Just in time for your holiday dinners we're digging into how and why so many filmmakers obsess over food in their films, and today we are grilling director David Gelb. He is the creator of the super popular Netflix food series <i>Chef's Table</i>. He's also made docs about everything from the Ford Mustang to Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee. But none of them topped the impact of his debut, <i>Jiro Dreams of Sushi</i>. I mean, Nozawa himself is like,"You made people understand the <i>omakase.</i>" And with its super slow motion and hypnotic Philip Glass score, it's a movie that not only changed how people eat food, but how they show it off on screen. As Gelb told me right off the bat, it's a style inspired by a BBC nature show and a few other influences I definitely didn't expect. I was a recently graduated film student in this kind of period of time between, age 22 and 25 or 26 years old, where I had a desire to make some kind of food <i>Planet Earth</i>-like thing, but I was really just working as a jack-of-all-trades on music video sets everything from gripping to camera operation to camera teching. Whatever jobs are happening around my kind of USC friends circle, and all the while, I kind of had this feeling of following the technology that might let me make something that ultimately became <i>Jiro Dreams of Sushi</i> and so... but why a food/<i>Planet Earth</i> type thing? Oh, I love to eat. I love to eat. My mom is a recipe chef, and she did recipes for cookbooks. My dad is general manager of the Metropolitan Opera and loved to take me to restaurants and stuff. I just, there was no food TV that I really liked watching. I loved, Anthony Bourdain. And, you know, he was kind of a hero of mine, but I imagined that there would be another kind of food show that would be like <i>Planet Earth</i> that would have more cinematic kind of values, but that would be around food. And, you know, ultimately, I narrowed that down to sushi, my favorite food. And what was originally gonna be a film about a number of different sushi chefs and their different approaches and their sushi in their parts of the world etc. etc., really came down to telling a personal story about Jiro Ono, who recently turned 100 years old and is kind of like, he is the... god of sushi is how he's known in Japan. When did you first learn of him? What was your first inkling that he existed in the world? It was actually during a research period. I was talking to chefs about which sushi chefs to film. I heard the name Jiro from the chef, Daniel Boulud, the great French chef, from Lyon, who has incredible restaurants in New York City. I was sitting with him and he was like,"Oh, you have to go film Jiro."- And I was like, "Hmm."- I see. By the way, you were able to talk to Daniel Boulud, I'm assuming because you're a New Yorker, your dad's working for the opera, you would occasionally bump into these people, or you could have access. I mean, I'm a New York culture nepo, if that makes any sense. So my grandfather, managing editor at <i>The New York Times</i>, then retired and became the president of the New York Times Foundation. And as an author, his life story is, his memoir is this book, <i>City Room,</i> which I highly recommend. And City Room Films is the name of your production company on that. That was the original production company, that's right, I named it after that. And then my dad, I was just hooked up in this world of chefs and artists and was granted an audience with Daniel and had a fantastic meal with him. And he let me know that the biggest, the three star Michelin chefs of the world, especially the French, said that Jiro's work is the greatest. Like, his sushi has such depth, such simplicity, and it's like the aspiration of any chef to be able to create a depth of flavor with so few brush strokes. People will almost certainly know this film. But for those who don't, can you give us the synopsis such as it is.- It's not like a super plot-driven movie.- Absolutely. So... Jiro Ono is an 85 year old, or 83 to 85 years old, during the period we were making the film. He works in this little sushi bar in a subway station. He only serves sushi, and he's the first sushi chef ever to earn three Michelin stars. But for him, the journey continues and he's always in this pursuit of perfection. So it's something he pursues to the exclusion of literally anything else. When his kids were little, Jiro says, he worked from 5am to 10 at night. If he ever slept in late enough for them to actually see him, they'd say..."Mom, there's a strange man sleeping in our house." But now his oldest son works in his dad's kitchen, trying to follow the same path."Our father was always strict with himself," he says, sitting next to his brother."We hold ourselves to the same standard." His son Yoshikazu works at the restaurant, and he has pretty big shoes to fill. And you know, he wants to do something that's worthy of his father, you know, to be a proper successor. And it's really a story about this philosophy of the pursuit of perfection, the art of sushi, and sort of this whole kind of Japanese ethos of being a <i>shokunin</i>, devoting your life to something and pursuing it for the sake of that thing. Not for any other goal, like making money or anything else. It's purely about the pursuit of excellence in a chosen craft. I thought that was such a beautiful thing, because I want to apply it to my own work. And, you know, I kind of went down there sort of with an open mind. And as a student with a brand new camera that had just come out that would allow these cinematic qualities of that <i>Planet Earth</i> style, but without needing the big crew. So it was just me and a translator. And I just kind of, just let it rip through moments of,"Wow, this is the most amazing thing ever," to, "Wow, I am making the most boring film ever. What am I gona do?" How did you get this guy's trust? Because he doesn't seem or anyone in his orbit, frankly, doesn't seem like they would just, like, let anybody in through the door. Like, regardless of whether they know the former editor of<i>The New York Times.</i>- Sure.- You've got to prove yourself. I'm just imagining they put you through some sort of boot camp. Well, a little bit. But, you know, the cultural nepo credential kept on helping me through this because my dad's translator in Japan connected me to Masuhiro Yamamoto, who is the food critic.- Oh, yeah, in the movie.- Who is in the movie. And I talked to him about getting to Jiro, and he was like,"Yes, this is the way." He took me down there and they're very into, like succession and kind of dynasty. They Masuhiro Yamamoto is a massive classical music fan and he convinced, Jiro that, you know, I'm young, but I have the chops for this. And, you know, I know some Japanese. I came in with a very gentle touch and they decided that it would be okay for me to stay for a month. And then I went back for 6 months and edited. And then I came back for a second month to kind of wrap it all up when I really knew what I was doing. What was-- Did you ever make a mistake in that time? Like, you jostled his arm and he's like, "Get out of here." Oh my God, so many mistakes. I was never kicked out, but I-- Yeah, of course. I mean, at first it was, you know, they just kind of taught me, sort of like when they take on a new apprentice because their whole thing is, they can teach sushi, but character is what they...- Yeah.- If it's a knowledge thing, fine. You know, like, I came in and I was too shy with my good morning. I was like, <i>"Ohayou gozaimasu"</i> And he's like, "No, when Jiro san comes in, you go, <i>Ohayou gozaimasu!"</i> You have to be-- They would kind of teach me the ways that he, you know, liked it or when to bother him. Don't talk to him when he's reading his newspaper etc. etc. But they were so kind. They were really generous. And they liked the idea that his work would be memorialized and that it would help cement his legacy. Although they really had no idea how big the film would become. And that's another story. They just kind of like treated me like a student. And they like-- They didn't mind that I was American because I was curious and polite, which if you're in Japan, just be polite and the world opens up to you there. The style of this movie has become so widely imitated, especially the use of slow motion when depicting food. How did that develop? I'm imitating some of my favorite documentary projects and favorite movies, period. I've been obsessed with slow motion-- When I went to USC, I wanted to make <i>The Matrix.</i> I also loved '80s and '90s action movies, particularly movies by John Woo and John Woo, is famous for his slow motion action scenes, his-- The doves flying in slow motion... A lot of high drama, a lot of really fancy camera work, shallow depth of field, and then <i>Planet Earth</i> was using some of that language, especially the slow motion and the shallow depth of field. And then Errol Morris was a big influence. The film <i>Fog of War</i> was the first documentary about a person that I was like,"Wow, this really feels like a movie." I love the Philip Glass-- I mean, the influences are all over it. You can see from the Philip Glass music use of slow motion, interviewing an old man about his life and his learnings through that life. You know, there was so much that really popped for me in that film. I do not think that the average person would look at <i>Jiro Dreams of Sushi</i> and be like, "Okay, the two influences of this are <i>The Matrix</i>"and a documentary about Robert McNamara, potential war criminal." So through the weird filter of my brain something original, I guess, came out of it. To you, what is the--'Cause this movie makes me hungry in a way few movies make me hungry. A lot of the movies we're talking about in this season do, though, and I'm trying throughout to figure out what is it about-- How do you depict food in a way that inspires hunger? Because obviously you're robbed of several senses that help hunger happen, like smell. Well, there is no secret here, and that's kind of what I love about it. It's really just context. I think that character is what makes people care. And that's what makes people choose a restaurant. You know, people want to know where the chef came from and why, a little bit at least, why is this restaurant good? And that story, I think, contributes a lot to the way that we perceive the deliciousness. So, understanding just basic hero's journey stuff and understanding that, these are people that had-- They discovered their powers and they didn't know how to use it.- It's actually more superhero,- Yeah. a little bit and <i>Chef's Table</i> and <i>Jiro</i>, a lot of it is origin story. Where did they discover their powers, and then how did they figure out how to use it? And then what stories are they telling with their, you know, by infusing their storytelling with their food? That's the journey and then the art kind of means something. I hate to tell you, but I've been doing the same thing with my line of questioning with you right now. You are the Spider Man of food documentaries. Thank you. Yeah. No, I love that. And again, I was obsessed with comic books. My influences are all super mainstream, and I'm just taking all that into niche land of my favorite niche, which is eating. The story in <i>Jiro Dreams of Sushi</i>, that I was like,"Oh, wow, this is really clicking," was actually about Nakazawa, who was the lead apprentice when we were filming, and now he has his own restaurants and has a wonderful... Sugarfish style delivery box that he does in Los Angeles, called Hi.Dozo, which is absolutely amazing. He was the lead apprentice. He had been working his entire career there, for ten years or something I think he was there when we were filming, and it took 200 attempts before Jiro approved of his egg sushi making. And egg, of course, in the west, like the egg sushi, nobody's choosing the egg sushi. And we had this moment where it's like,"Oh, the egg sushi is actually the most important thing." And so he's trying to make it and he's failing over and over again. He finally makes it right. And then Jiro, like, gives him the nod of approval. And he's like, "I cried." His eyes are watering and he's telling the story. He's like, "I wept," and I'm like, "Wow, now that sushi means something to me." Like it makes it more delicious to me. And then of course, shallow depth of field and nice lighting, bringing the eye line to the guest's eyeline. You know, when you're served sushi, it's right at this kind of quarter angle. I bring the camera even closer, you're down low with the sushi, inspecting it, and then the selective focus really just draws your eye to the detail. If I may, I have my theories about this, and it's similar to something I mentioned-- I interviewed Luca Guadagnino about his sex scenes, actually, and he was like,"I just kind of feel my way through it. It's very intuitive." And I was like, well, to me it feels like there's two things, one is exaggerating sound and extending time, and it feels like the slow motion, especially in your movies, is this example of extending time. It makes it obviously look more sensual because everything's moving more smoothly than things do in real life. But it's also, and I guess it's especially appropriate when you're talking about a Japanese film, there's almost a Zen quality you're trying to create where you're focusing on this small moment that normally we just breeze through. You take a fork, you put it in something, you put it in your mouth, it's over. But you're like, no, let's linger on this. Don't think about the rest of the world or the conversation you're having. This is almost what Jiro does in his restaurant, which is very austere. It's just like, focus on this thing right now for a second. There is everything to that. I think that's exactly right, especially in the scenes, and I'm just running through the movie in my head. Scenes where he's making the sushi. There are things that we just-- This is one of the things I loved about being able to make<i>Jiro Dreams of Sushi.</i> Sushi was already widely popular in the United States when I was making this movie. People loved sushi. They didn't know about nigiri sushi, where, you know, the simple sushi. It was always kind of special rolls and all kinds of combinations of flavor and whatnot. The simple act of forming sushi was completely taken for granted by everybody, including sushi chefs in the West. So when he's grabbing the little bit of rice from the thing, just the right amount, and then he sees him pressing it, brushing the sauce on just so, taking these micro details that one might take for granted and then extending that perfect moment. It draws your eye to the magic of it. And that's the same thing with sports. You're watching a football game or something, and you're seeing-- It all happens so fast, but then you can actually see the artistry of the running back faking out a horde of defenders. And it's like, "Whoa." Those little details are lost. And I think that is, we brought that to food for sure. We know all this now. But in the early 2010s<i>Jiro Dreams of Sushi</i> was just an indie doc by an unknown filmmaker about an unknown old man making simple pieces of sushi. Not an obvious cultural watershed, even if Gelb suspected it could be one. There was a moment where I was like,"This is really good." When I got over the hump of understanding that, you know, it is this story about succession and a son trying to fill his father's footsteps and that it's really a two hander between the father and the son. I realized, "Oh, wow, now this is really starting to work." And the music was really working. And, you know, I was enjoying watching the sequences and I'm like, okay, now I know I'm on the right track. The movie was really well received at film festivals, 2011. It premiered in Berlin to a really, really warm response. But no buyers, not even an offer. We had one offer, and I won't mention the buyer. One offer of $0 just to try to get it out there. We were passed on by Weinstein Company because they said that you could never do a foreign language documentary, nobody would ever watch it. That was a failure of imagination.<i>Jiro Dreams of Sushi</i> makes a lot of people dream of eating Jiro sushi. That's coming up in just a minute. Stay with us. Alright, everybody. MUBI is the global film company that champions great cinema, bringing it to you wherever you are, in as many ways as we possibly can. We stream movies, we produce them, we release them in theaters, movies from any country, from legendary auteurs or brilliant first timers, we've always got something new for you to discover. And hey, since this episode has taken us to Asia to sample a very fine food film, I have a feeling you will be into another one, it is called <i>Winter in Sokcho</i>. It's based on the award winning novel, and is about a woman working at a guest house in a South Korean fishing village that empties out at winter. And then things warm up when a French graphic novelist comes to stay and she starts showing him her town between rounds of incredible looking fish dishes her mom cooks up. It's super atmospheric. It's very apt for the holiday season. There's plenty of snowfall, and it is streaming now on MUBI in the UK, US, Canada and lots of other countries. All you got to do is subscribe at mubi.com We've got links and all the info you need in the show notes of this episode. Also, by the way, if you're in the Netherlands, and I'm very jealous if you are, it's my favorite country, up there, MUBI is streaming the movie we are talking about on this very episode,<i>Jiro Dreams of Sushi.</i> I highly recommend you go watch that, but wait till the episode is over. In fact, why not? Let's get back to the episode right now. Alright, so it is 2011, Magnolia Pictures has finally stepped in and given <i>Jiro Dreams of Sushi</i> a respectable theatrical run, but now it's about to become... a phenomenon. When it hit Netflix, it just everything changed. You know, this was the moment of Netflix when people were discovering documentary just as a format. That's right. It was kind of like, people forget this, it was kind of like everyone-- I think it's understood now that, documentaries-- I remember at one point recently, walking by some multiplex and half of the screens were actually showing docs. That was not happening, I feel like, until Netflix started putting a whole bunch of docs up there and people were like,"These are good." It was part of it, yeah. There were a few good docs coming out of this period, and I know that Weinstein Company, had put out <i>Bully</i> that year and did a big theatrical push for this movie, <i>Bully.</i> And there were some-- Ironic actually, now I think about it. So docs were kind of coming up, but it was like Netflix connected it to the mainstream. Because you could only see these docs in art houses, in movie theaters, but in the middle of America where they didn't have these types of theaters, nobody was watching a documentary. But Netflix was serving these things up and making them available and people started watching them, and it just kind of blew up. That's when I realized something was happening, as soon as it hit Netflix and like, my Twitter was, like blowing up. And then people, the restaurant started to complain a little bit- that people were annoying them.- Jiro's restaurant? Oh yeah, because people started just showing up at the restaurant. Which is a place where, even in the movie, you have to book a month in advance even when you were making it. You have to book a month in advance. There's a scene I love where some guy wanders in, he's like,"Oh, this is a sushi restaurant."Do you have appetizers?" They're like, "No." He's like, "How much is it?" It's like ¥30,000. It's $300 a person. And he's like, "Oh, okay. Is it possible to make reservations?""Yeah, one month in advance." And the guy just kind of inches out of the restaurant backwards."Got it. Bye." And now people were just showing up and taking pictures through the windows. And they had to shutter up the windows and stuff. And it was kind of an inconvenience for them at first. But that was the moment. Netflix was the moment. Let's talk about the impact this movie had on the food world. Because there was a point where I actually wanted to do-- This whole season would be movies that actually made people eat differently, and it's actually hard to come up with movies that have done it. There's a few, you could argue,<i>Sideways</i> made people drink wine differently. Yeah, and not drink Merlot ever. Merlot was destroyed. Utterly destroyed by <i>Sideways.</i> It was. Well, this is the opposite. Like this is the movie that popularized <i>omakase.</i> Did you notice this happening? Did somebody have to point it out? Oh yeah. I mean, Nozawa himself, when he was founding Sugarfish, took me out to his new Nozawa bar and he was like,"You made people understand <i>omakase.</i>" He's like, "Thank you." And I got one free meal from him. My only free meal from Nozawa. It was really wonderful and he was very kind. But, so that's been kind of a self-serving side effect because now it's a lot easier to get good sushi around the world. But there is now also, I know that there are those who are like, okay, that was that needed to happen. People needed to appreciate the artistry of sushi and the simplicity of it and <i>omakase</i> and respecting the chefs. But now it's everywhere, and it's also very rarefied and hard and expensive to get into. Also, Jiro, my understanding is you can't even get a reservation anymore at Jiro. It doesn't even allow the public to just make a reservation anymore. That's how rarefied this has become. Are there any regrets? Not really. I don't, you know, as far as Jiro's restaurant, the demand was so high that they had to kind of, it kind of became like a members club in a way where they can only serve so many people and yet this is the most famous sushi restaurant in the world all of a sudden. They just had to change their practices so that people would stop coming. Otherwise, the phone would be ringing off the hook. And so, you know, you have to kind of know somebody who knows somebody. There are also some services that you can employ that will not only get you into the restaurant for a fee, but they will also educate you on how to eat sushi and how to be there and what to expect. Because a lot of people go in there, they think they're just going to a fancy, you know, sushi restaurant where they'll just accommodate you. And this is like, not what was happening. People were going for clout and not knowing what they were in for. If there was one regret about the film. And Jiro mentioned this to me himself when I went, was like, there should have been a section where they teach you how to eat sushi. You should have said what to do when you come in the door. And I was like, "Good note." But it was too late. And by the way, I did have to educate myself. There was, because I remember somebody was saying-- I always dipped it rice first and somebody was like,"No, you should dip it fish side down." That's right, right? Yeah, I think Bourdain actually talked about this a bit, and he was an advocate of the film. You know, he loved the film. He had tried to film with Jiro before, but Jiro refused to sign the release form because he didn't want to be part of an episode with other sushi chefs. And so Bourdain admired not only the film, but kind of like the way I had handled the Old Master in the sense that, you know, I had earned his trust. And Bourdain talked about that, you know, he would talk about, I'm not sure if it was on the show or somewhere that you don't make the wasabi slurry combining wasabi with soy sauce. And Bourdain kind of corrected the record on that. And I think that he was he talked about turning the sushi, brushing the fish side. Nozawa advocated for that as well. Now they brush the soy sauce on for you like Jiro does. One, they don't want to waste soy sauce. You know, you got to put the right amount on and control that. I remember when I went to a lunch shortly after I made the film, and there was an already sauced piece of sushi that then he dunked into the soy sauce and soaked all that rice, and I was like, "Oh man, I really should say something," but I didn't. Yeah. I've been spoiled, but there's no reason to be a jerk to this poor person. Exactly. Yeah. Just let people enjoy it the way they like it. And everybody has their way. Just a little bit more, though, on the <i>omakase</i> explosion. Has it been a good thing overall? What I love are reasonably priced <i>omakases</i> Some of the <i>omakases</i>, and they're allowed to do this, they can price it as high as the market will bear, are so expensive that they are prohibitive. And actually there is a correction happening in that market. You know, not every super hyped, super expensive sushi bar is full anymore. There have been some closures. What I think is the right correction is<i>omakase</i> that is attainable and you do it-- It doesn't have to be such like a long, drawn out thing. It doesn't, it shouldn't-- To be honest, Jiro sushi is a 30 minute meal. It's expensive because everybody wants to go there and they are getting the absolute best fish and it's very expensive to acquire these ingredients. And he's kind of earned that right. But I don't regret it. I love a fancy sushi meal and I love a casual one. I just want them to care about the rice. Make the rice good. You know, make the thing simple and don't just serve mid rice and then shave a bunch of truffles on top of it, or don't do things just to impress with luxury ingredients, but put some thought about how you are actually, how that actually tastes. and is there a reason to be putting caviar on stuff? So, there's some stuff where it's a little bit of an eye roll, there's some stuff where there's way too much storytelling and talking. That's the thing about <i>Chef's Table</i> is there are some meals where you sit down and it's like you have to listen to an audiobook before you can enjoy your bite. But I think these things work themselves out and people go back to the restaurants that they love. What I don't regret is making people think about food and care about food, and to strive to do something better than they did yesterday. That's my favorite part of it. Apparently <i>kaiseki</i> is now the new thing.<i>Omakase</i> is the old thing. Now it's <i>kaiseki.</i>- What's your take?- I think <i>kaiseki</i> is cool. And I think it's still an <i>omakase</i> because it's like, the chef is choosing what's seasonal. But I think that actually the prince-- If they're doing <i>kaiseki</i> right, the principle of <i>kaiseki</i> is seasonality. And this has been a problem in American food culture since Wolfgang. I did the Wolfgang Puck documentary also. Since Wolfgang came here, since Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse, they have been trying to get people to eat seasonally and to think about making it about the ingredient. And this is what Wolfgang recently said on the <i>Chef's Table: Talks</i> podcast. He's like, get great ingredients and don't fuck it up<i>Kaiseki</i> is all about seasonality. It's about the finest ingredients, with simple technique to bring out those flavors so that you're tasting the season. And I think that that helps so much with our farm system to have more delicious things. Michael Pollan's written a great deal about this. He had a great documentary, called <i>Food, Inc.</i> where, the tomato in the supermarket is not grown to be delicious. It's grown to look red like a tomato and to have shelf life. They're just like, in Japan, certain markets-- There are just times when certain vegetables are not available'cause they're not in season and you switch to this vegetable. But in the American supermarket system, you need to have everything available all the time. And so I hope that <i>kaiseki</i> moves us in that direction of seasonality. What is the new <i>kaiseki</i> spot in LA, what's opening up?- I want to know.- I have no idea. I've got a six year old kid. I don't go out to do anything anymore.- I have a six year old also.- Really? Are you still getting out? Man, that kid must eat well. Yeah, well, the six year old likes to go to restaurants because he knows-- I've said, while you're waiting for the food, you can play on your Nintendo Switch. That's the one. And he's adventurous. He goes to Petit Trois, in the Valley.- In Los Angeles.- And he loves escargot. He's like, "Oh, this is funny." So he eats a lot. My four year old, on the other hand, is on a strict French fry mac and cheese, butter pasta, diet and is utterly uncompromising. Phil Rosenthal told me that he knows some parents that are paying their kids to try it, in some way. You can give them extra screen time... What's also helped a little bit is I give them a rating system. So it's like, "Okay, raise one hand if you just like it,"raise two hands if you love it." And then you can do thumbs down, thumbs up, and they make up their own ratings. So it gives them the agency of judgment. I hope I don't turn them into food critics. David Gelb. Earlier this year, he and <i>Jiro Dreams of Sushi</i> were celebrated at the first ever Real Taste Film Awards honoring food movies. Now that's an awards dinner where they're not gonna be serving rubbery wedding chicken, I'm guessing. And that is the MUBI podcast for this week. Follow us for more stories about food and film. Next week, one of the world's great filmmakers makes cultures collide in a grocery aisle."Holy cow," says the cash register guy, you know. Of course, not realizing that cows indeed are holy where I come from. Mira Nair slices up her movies<i>Mississippi Masala,</i> <i>Salaam Bombay!</i> and dishes on what her son, Zohran Mamdani, eats at home. Follow us so you don't miss it. Also, if you've got comments, questions, or you just want to brag about the one time you managed to wrangle a seat at Jiro's place, email us at podcast@mubi.com And now let's roll credits. This episode was written, hosted, and edited by me, Rico Gagliano. Ciara McEniff is our producer, with help from assistant producer Kat Kowalczyk. Our booking producer is Jackson Musker. Stephen Colon mastered the episode. Martin Austwick composed our original music. Thanks this week to Corrina Lesser and to the LA Press Club's National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards, where we were just named the Best Ongoing Arts Podcast of the year for the fourth time. Yay us! The show is executive produced by me along with Efe Çakarel, Daniel Kasman, and Michael Tacca. And finally, to watch the best in cinema, subscribe to MUBI at mubi.com Thanks for listening. Go watch some movies. And hey, here's a tip I got from a Japanese American pal: Sneak a bag of mochi crunch rice crackers into the theater, dump them into your popcorn... Trust me, you will never go back to caramel corn. That's over for you.