Product Description

Japan is the pre-eminent food nation on earth. The Japanese go to the most extraordinary lengths and expense to eat the finest, most delectable, and downright freakiest food imaginable. Their creativity, dedication and ingenuity, not to mention courage in the face of dishes such as cod sperm, whale penis and octopus ice cream, is only now beginning to be fully appreciated in the sushi-saturated West, as are the remarkable health benefits of the traditional Japanese diet. Inspired by Shizuo Tsuji's classic book, "Japanese Cooking, A Simple Art", food and travel writer Michael Booth sets off to take the culinary pulse of contemporary Japan, learning fascinating tips and recipes that few westerners have been privy to before. Accompanied by with two fussy eaters under the age of six, he and his wife travel the length of the country, from bear-infested, beer-loving Hokkaido to snake-infested, seaweed-loving Okinawa. Along the way, they dine with - and score a surprising victory over - sumos; meet the indigenous Ainu; drink coffee at the dog cafe; pamper the world's most expensive cows with massage and beer; discover the secret of the Okinawan people's remarkable longevity; share a seaside lunch with free-diving, female abalone hunters; and, meet the greatest chefs working in Japan today. Less happily, they trash a Zen garden, witness a mass fugu slaughter, are traumatised by an encounter with giant crabs, and attempt a calamitous cooking demonstration for the lunching ladies of Kyoto. They also ask, 'Who are you?' to the most famous TV stars in Japan. What do the Japanese know about food? Perhaps more than anyone on else on earth, they are judging by this fascinating and funny journey through an extraordinary food-obsessed country.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #174857 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
"Wins you over with his sheer enthusiasm." -- Joseph Woods, The Independent

About the Author
Michael Booth is a travel writer and journalist who contributes regularly to Conde Nast Traveller, The Independent on Sunday, Monocle among many other publications at home and abroad. His last book, Sacre Cordon Bleu, was Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4.

Customer Reviews

Sushi!!!
This is an absolutly brillient book and I recomend it to any one, sushi fan or not. I bought this book on a saturday after 5 minutes of deciding thinking it would take me a while to read, but I read it in two days. I just could not put this book down. This book concerns the travels of a food writer and his family who are eating their way accross japan. Not only is this book very insigtful about Japanese food but it's really really funny. Some of the most interesting bits are concerning the authors two young children presented with the curiositys of Japanese food and Japan in general.

What's more it had me craving some sashimi by the end of it :)

So Far From Japan?
Don't get me wrong, this is a fun read. if you want to read how someone can sway between being a family man and a food vigilante, lost on the streets of Japan and desperate for tofu/ ramen/ an explanation for kobe beef. However many even among tourists will quickly twig his geographical explanations: how addresses work , which are the Tokyo suburbs, etc are almost comically wrong.

This together with occasional stunning reversals of truth: Japanese cab drivers are entirely worthy people who never give up, when unfortunately one piece of advice at any hotel is you'd be better asking any local for a map to where you were going before you got in the cab as many of these drivers not only are not the wise local guides such throwaway phrases seem to indicate.

If you have to have a tour book to Japan laced by the most telling of stereotypes: the crab in Sapporo stay with you for ever.

Although Booth's kitchen knowledge is something I cannot check, his inherent and self-confessed inability to sift fact and opinion (he spends 2 chapters retracting erroneous beliefs in the most extreme propaganda of the movements against MSG and umami [yes, really] that the rest of us thought were not only transparently unbalanced washed away as credible long before the turn of the century.

The great plus point of this book is his enthusiasm and food knowledge. However almost without exception items of Japanese food emerge and are swept away inside a chapter visiting a single set of meals. is swept away in a single meal. Much of his apparently weeks of time in Japan is thankfully distilled into the few best foody stories told in depth, which he went to great efforts to collect. But some of the stories, by their very extremeness, alienate.

Don't take it as a guide: around 50-70% of the food experiences are not of the type [most exclusive restaurant in japan, got in by personal invite] but some are.

Lack of time is a cfactor in not overcoming his beliefs: his dismissal of fugu on one try seems dubious - contrast with Charles Rangeley Wilson's estatic praise of a lucius looking meal BBC4 recently and his trashing of oden [it obeys none of his foody prejudices, just being food that tastes good -or not- to you served in a simple pot]are as laughable as is his lack of wisdom in promoting okonomiyaki- long available in the west as a good way of selling simple produce with little culinary inputs at the price of a meal - Leicester Square in London, as if another crusade for the overpriced overtouted cook it yourself eggy vegetable mix was somehow going to tip it over the top of anyone's cuisine stakes other than nostalgic ex-japanese high school students and people avoiding eating proper meals...

There is great stuff here experientially, but a lot gets lost in the rush and the haze. The theory of food reads well but his errors in basic information and his history of accepting too many fads, however honestly he decries them now. Most people trying to research anything in Japan know each source may offer a plausible theory: you need to keep digging.

I think this is as good as any tv programme on the subject given the provisos above: it is entertaining but I would not offer it to anyone as a guide to help them eat in Japan. I think if you want to go, just take some notes on what you really want to try, ignore the comments on the things he rejects and leave the book behind.

Accent on the exotic
Michael Booth travels around Japan with his wife and young children, and produces an informative and entertaining food-travelogue. His description of the philosophy and attitudes behind many dishes give interesting insights into Japanese culture as a whole. Good to read before you go!
His self-confessed urge to try the strangest foods available means that the accent is on the exotic, and we don't get a very balanced view of what most Japanese usually eat in everyday life... but with his background as a trained chef he conveys his appreciation of many of the particular ingredients and techniques used in Japanese cuisine.
The presence of his two young sons on the trip, being such blond European curiosities in Japan, provides a lot of light entertainment in this very readable book.
Well worth a read for anyone interested in Japan.