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Japanese Cookbook question
posted by jane235 on Thu, 2010-01-21 20:30
Do you have a recommendation for a cookbook in Japanese that has all the basics of Japanese home cooking plus lots of recipes - a sort of Japanese equivalent of Mrs Beeton's cookbook? Pref with some pictures, to help me with my fairly basic Japanese language skills, whicn I'm currently trying to brush up again. A few years ago I spent 4 months in a homestay in Sapporo and have kept a note of the tasty meals we ate most days - I'd like to re-create some of them, but haven't got a clue where to start. The cookbooks I've seen in English don't have a lot of the sort of things that we ate there. I've got quite a good Japanese store near me, which helps.
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I bought both these books on Maki's recommendation and think they are excellent
http://www.justhungry.com/japanese-cookbook-english-great-teacher
The Homestyle book has the edge as my own rec. for a beginner.
I've looked through 'Washoku' but haven't yet bought it. I will soon though. I have a high regard for the author, Elizabeth Andoh. I just wish she hadn't made her measurements solely for the US market, I really loathe using recipes that demand 'cups' of things - I'm never sure I've got the correct conversion to metric and it drains all the joy from trying a recipe for me :(
I've known about Mrs Andoh for some time, but Risa took a cooking class with her recently and described her experience here:
http://www.savoryjapan.com/learn/andoh/andoh.html
I hope I can also attend one of her classes soon
I would stick to the books I recommended in the post that Loretta posted, for really authentic washoku recipes (traditional Japanese); although Elizabeth Andoh's book is very comprehensive, to me it's almost overkill and intimidating. Another one that is very popular and more 'contemporary' is Harumi Kurihara's book Harumi's Everyday Cooking (Amazon UK; Amazon.com). A classic which, to my mind may be more accessible even now (though it was written originally I like more than 2 decades ago) than Washoku is Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art (Amazon UK link) by Shizuo Tsuji. Definitely one to have on an English language Japanese cooking bookshelf.
Also, please check out Just Hungry for my interpretations of Japanese recipes - and feel free to request recipes to post too ^_^ (though it sometimes takes me weeks/months even years to finally post them...)
The Big Onigiri.
- Wherever you go, there you are. -
A classic which, to my mind may be more accessible even now (though it was written originally I like more than 2 decades ago) than Washoku is Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art (Amazon UK link) by Shizuo Tsuji. Definitely one to have on an English language Japanese cooking bookshelf.
If you're interested in checking this book out, there's a very useful Google facility that lets you have a very thorough preview:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fby2Er0seMMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=J...
It's a shame there isn't a similar way to demonstrate how clear and approachable the photo instructions are in Tokiko Suzuki's books.
Thanks, Loretta and Maki, for the recommendations, and especially the useful link to the Google books site, which I didn't know about. I've ordered Homestyle Cooking and the Simple Art books, as both look very good. I wondered though, Maki, if you also had a recommendation for a similarly good Japanese cookbook in Japanese, since I wanted to use it partly as a tool to improve my reading of Japanese - I have made it a personal challenge for this year to be able to cook a complete meal from Japanese recipes before the end of the year!
Jane
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