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• by:
• Tsuji, Shizuo

Much more than a collection of recipes, the cookbook is a masterful treatise on Japanese cuisine. In his preface, the author (who was truly a Renaissance man of Japanese and world gastronomy) discusses the essence of Japanese cooking, with its emphasis on simplicity, balance of textures, colors, and flavors, seasonal freshness, and artful presentation.

M. F. K. Fisher's introduction to the 1980 edition is a not-to-be-missed work of food writing. A new foreword by Ruth Reichl and an additional preface by Tsuji Culinary Institute president Yoshiki Tsuji provide culinary and historical context for the 25th Anniversary Edition. Eight pages of vibrant new color photographs illustrate over seventeen finished dishes.

After introducing ingredients and utensils, the twenty chapters that make up Part One consist of lessons presenting all the basic Japanese cooking methods and principal types of prepared foods—making soup, slicing sashimi, grilling, simmering, steaming, noodles, sushi, pickles, and so on—with accompanying basic recipes. Part Two features 130 carefully selected recipes that range from everyday fare to intriguing challenges for the adventurous cook. Together with the recipes in Part One, these allow the cook to build a repertoire of dishes ranging from the basic soup and three formula to a gala banquet.

Quite the most illuminating text around on Japanese food. --Nigella Lawson

If Kurasawa had ignited my love for the country, Mr. Tsuji deepened and defined it.--Jonathan Hayes, The New York Times

This is much more than a cookbook. It is a philosophical treatise about the simple art of Japanese cooking. Appreciate the lessons of this book, and you will understand that while sushi and sashimi were becoming part of American culture, we were absorbing much larger lessons from the Japanese. We
were learning to think about food in an entirely new way.--from the new Foreword by Ruth Reichl