Cooking With Japanese Foods: A Guide to the Traditional Natural Foods of Japan

Shares recipes for using Japanese fermented foods, noodles, grains, vegetables, beans, seaweeds, and condiments, and describes cooking utensils and techniques

The appeal of Japanese cuisine is no longer a sophisticated secret; Japanese restaurants thrive in cities and towns around the world. But while most people feel comfortable ordering a selection of sushi or a plate of tempura from an English menu, few know the pleasures of soba, tonkatsu, and kamameshi, and fewer still are at ease shopping for daikon, burdock, and bonito flakes for their own kitchens. The Bellemes wrote their guide to Japanese ingredients in order to make udon and azuki less intimidating and to introduce Western cooks to the healthy benefits of the Japanese diet. But their guide is a boon to travelers as well. Japan can be an overwhelming experience, especially if you don't speak the language or read the kanji characters, and visitors often stick to the safety of Western-style restaurants or the few Japanese noodle shops and sushi bars that cater to tourists, eschewing the bold plunge into alien-looking yakitori joints and nabemono nooks. But the incredible diversity of Japanese cuisine is one of the fundamental pleasures of touring Japan, and it's a shame to miss out. Getting familiar with Japanese foods--the ingredients, how to cook them, the range of dishes from summer picnic fare to hearty winter stews--is as important a preparation as seeing that your passport's in order and making flight reservations--and a whole lot more enjoyable. The pictures you take in Tokyo will end up in an album gathering dust on a shelf, but the foods you fall in love with are forever. It's nice to have a recipe book to return home to, with instructions on how to prepare the dishes that invoke Japan.