&gt; does washing rice for 3 years really make your sushi that much better?<p>I think so. Preparing rice properly is not easy. Most of the time it&#x27;s not done well, even in Japan.<p>&gt; The way sushi chefs talk about sushi makes it sound like there&#x27;s some sort of massive, order-of-magnitude difference between them and the &quot;sushi men&quot;.<p>The way hackers talk about code makes it sound like there&#x27;s some sort of massive, order-of-magnitude difference between them and some guy who started making web sites with Wordpress a couple years ago.<p>Having sushi prepared by a man who knows the names and favors of hundreds of different kinds of fish by heart, who knows exactly what time of year they&#x27;re best, how to perfectly cut and season them, what temperature each needs to be served at, who has access to buy the best of the best and who won&#x27;t accept any compromise on the rice is objectively different.<p>I also love the cheap junk food rolls. The ones that come with a generous amount of spicy mayo, tempura flakes and all that... but how much skill does it really take to prepare that? Deep fried stuff and favored mayo makes anything taste good.<p>It&#x27;s like the difference between a cigarette and a cigar. Sure, they&#x27;re both tobacco, and maybe the cigar is overpriced, but they&#x27;re objectively not the same experience.