It's 10 PM. Do You Know Where Your Rice Is?

Have you heard of Hajime Murashima 村嶋孟, the ‘wizard of rice’?

Born in 1930, he was the Jiro Sushi of rice before Jiro became Jiro Sushi of sushi.

His little restaurant in Osaka coined the phrase Ginshari (銀シャリ) - rice so pure and shiny that it was compared to silver.

In life, we order rice to go with dishes. But in Ginshari, the main dishes were snubbed like Demi Moore in the best actress category of the 2025 Oscars.

Last I heard, he retired his shop and went on tours in China before getting betrayed by his partners and disciples¹. Chinese comments on his YouTube video claim he has passed away, but I could not verify on Japanese Google.

Even if he’s alive, he’s 95 years old now.
May he be resting in peace.

Luckily, the internet never forgets.

Here’s a 2019 article about him, about an article of him from 1991.

In 2019, along Ichiro Suzuki and Naomi Watanabe, Murashima was selected as one of the ‘top 100 influential Japanese’ by NewsWeek Japan.

I know what you’re thinking, so what’s his secret to cooking silver rice? What’s the recipe?

Dude, I just gave you the article, Google translate it, or use your new iPhone with- oh that’s right, there’s no AI on your iPhone² yet.

Fine, here’s a summary:

Hajime Murashima's (1991) Rice Cooking Method

Rice Selection

Murashima believes in blending different types for better flavour through “taste interaction”³.