The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking: A Traditional Diet for Today's World

by Gaku Homma

Book Overview

Those who love Japanese food know there is more to it than sukiyaki, tempura, and sushi. A variety of miso-based soups, one-pot cooking ( nabemono ), and vegetable side dishes with sweet vinegar dressing ( sunomono ) are just a few of the traditional dishes that are attracting many interested in Asian cooking. Homma presents an intriguing mixture of Japanese country cooking, folk tradition, and memories of growing up in Japan. Cooking methods include...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1556430981
• ISBN13: 9781556430985
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: North Atlantic Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.1" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

Practical & delicious

I've almost worn out my copy, & have recommended it to everyone I know who is interested in down-to-earth, country-style Japanese food. Not only does the author give ingredients & quantities, he explains why & how various cooking techniques evolved. You won't find the usual Japanese restaurant favorites, but there are other books for those. The breakfast ideas & recipes alone make this worth reading -- a great alternative to eggs-toast-bacon-cereal. One minor quibble, which may have been remedied in this edition: the indexing & general organization of the book are a bit tricky. Dishes are usually listed by their Japanese names, or by their method of cooking, & the page number references in the index are not always reliable. So get a pack of Post-It notes or some bookmarks (my copy is full of them), but by all means get this book.

A true understanding of Japanese Cuisine

I am so glad to see this book back in print. I bought mine at Powell's here in Portland OR back in 91. Japanese food is so much more than sushi and Homma lets us look at some of foundations of this cuisine. If you want to understand the heart and sole of Japanese food culture this is a very good place to start. Gaku Homma is a living National Tresure for Japan and for the rest of us here in the USA. Buy this book!

Great Simple Every Day Food

First, this is not your typical cookbook. You will probably first notice that there are no big flashy pictures of perfect looking food. Next you will see that you have to read about 100pages to get to the recipes. But it is well worth it.The first half of the book deals with the history and ingreadiants of Japanese country cooking. The second half has all the recipes. For some of the ingreadiants you will probably have to try an Asian market, but over all most of the recipes are pretty simple, healthy, and taste great. A lot of these dishes are also not the type of food that you will find at the typical Japanese restrant, they are what you will probably encounter if you are lucky enough to be invited to someone's house for dinner in Japan.Also nice is that many simple things such as how to cook rice in a pot or cut up a whole fish are covered for us less expert cooks out there. So if you like more Asian food or just want to try something different I really recommend this book.

Wonderful and bizarre

This book is sort of bizarre. On the one hand it is a great cookbook with emphasis on techniques and little on "recipes". The upshot is that one might actually come to understand the techniques of Japanese cooking. It is also an interesting discussion of rural Japan. My only objection to the book is that the author seems both wrapped up in nostalga and aware of the trade value of nostalga to some of the audience reading the book. If you are looking for a good Japanese cookbook, I would recommend this _AND_ another, and eating at restaurants. The idea is that you can follow the directions in the other cookbook, but understand the issues of technique and/or philosophy from this one. The only catch is that you are less likely to get the sorts of things that this book discusses at restaurants.

Serious history and cooking too.

Although the recipes are interesting and useful, you have to know something of Oriental cooking to use them. This is not a beginners book.The heart of the book is not the recipes, though. It's the Japanese Cultural history. This is absolutely the best ethnography of rural Japan ever written, in my experience.If you've ever wondered what life in rural Japan, or, for that matter, any rural subsistance society was like, this is where you'll find out. There is a lot of our own history in this book, if you care to look.