Essentially Japanese Cooking & Cuisine

The French word cuisine means, literally, kitchen. More broadly, it means the food traditions of a country. And it is in this sense that Hideo Dekura uses the word in the title of this wonderful book.

Not only does it offer a collection of traditional (Wa-shoku, Japanese food) and modern (Yo-shoku, Western food) recipes collected from chefs and gifted amateurs, but it has a background to the recipes, a culinary tour around Japan and insights into Japanese cuisine, cooking and its ingredients.

If his last book (Japanese Cooking at Home) was a simple but far from simplistic how-to for the non-Japanese cook, this is for those of you who want to go further — all the way to Japan — to get to grips with this remarkable and beautiful culture and its food.

As a teacher of Japanese cooking Hideo-san recognises, as he writes in his author’s note, “just teaching the technique is nothing but an imitation of style”, and he knows that “with some cultural information and some knowledge of Japanese cuisine as a whole, (students) become passionate about the cuisine and better appreciate the Japanese daily way of life”.

If that resonates with you, this is your book. Indeed, like Paul Richardson’s A Late Dinner, which (elsewhere in these pages) I recommend you take with you to Spain, this little gem should slip into your suitcase on your next — or first — trip to Japan. And, as the Richardson book does with Spain, Hideo-san’s Essentially Japanese will make you want to pack your bag and take off now.