Amazon.com Review
If the food of a culture has a pulse, in Japan that pulse would be called
washoku. It's a set of principles in fives that takes into account color, taste, ways of preparing food, the diner's senses, and the outlook brought to bear on both the cooking and the dining experience. The result? Meals that are balanced, pleasing, invigorating, healing, and satisfying--all in ways that seep deep into the soul. It's the great good luck of the West that Elizabeth Andoh chose a life in Japan and a focus on food. Her expertise has brought forth the award-winning
An Ocean of Flavor as well as countless newspaper and magazine pieces.
With Washoku Andoh takes the reader into the heart of the Japanese home kitchen. She explains the guiding philosophy then brings it into practical terms with a section on the essential washoku pantry. Her section on the washoku kitchen begins with cutting and ends with shaping and molding. Recipes are found in chapters on Stocks and Condiments; Soups; Rice; Noodles; Vegetables; Fish, Meat and Poultry; Tofu and Eggs; and Desserts.
You might never prepare an entire Japanese meal from beginning to end (though with this book in hand you certainly could), but there's no reason not to believe you wouldn't begin to include some of these recipes in an expanding foodway. The sauces and condiments are particularly exciting. As is the underlying thinking that goes into how you are cooking and why you are cooking--the washoku of it all. Not a bad lesson to learn from an exemplary teacher. --Schuyler Ingle
From the Publisher
* A full-color cookbook featuring more than 140 recipes for the classics of the Japanese home kitchen, written by the leading English-language authority on the cuisine, Elizabeth Andoh, Gourmet magazine ’s correspondent in Japan.
* The essentials of the Japanese pantry — the array of herbs and spices, the numerous varieties of miso, tofu, and noodles — are illustrated in full-color photographs.
* Andoh’s An Ocean of Flavor won the IACP cookbook award for Seafood, Meat, and Poultry in 1998.
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