World Food Japan

by Lonely Planet, Yoshi Abe, John Frederick Ashburne

Open wide and sink your teeth into Lonely Planet's new World Food guides. Whether you're hungry for adventure, or a steaming bowl of Vietnamese pho, these guides will satisfy your every craving. Written in an entertaining and opinionated style, these are the definitive culinary guides to the world's major travel destinations. They are an indispensable reference for both adventurous cooks and travellers trying to eat their way through unfamiliar menus and markets. With tantalising photography throughout, they are also a feast for the eyes.

The pocket-size World Food guides serve up heaping portions of information on everything to do with eating and drinking in a country. They cover the history and evolution of the cuisine, its staples and specialties, and the kitchen philosophy of the people. Lonely Planet opens the doors on home cooking and traditions, showing how food and drink have become integral to personal and national celebrations, and discovering the myriad of regional cuisines that exist in even the most familiar countries.

Japan

From the traditional dishes served at rural hot-spring ryokan inns, to the restaurant-filled high-rise madness of Tokyo, Japan expresses itself through its food. This guide takes you on a journey through all of Japan's culinary life. We go beyond the familiar sake and sushi, covering the essentials -- dashi (stock), bento boxes, and soba noodles, and the exotic -- fermented soy beans, matsutake mushrooms, and fish that still wriggle as they slide down your throat. Itadakimasho! Let's eat!

This guidebook features:

The essential guide to the culture of food and drink in Japan

Celebrating the seasons with Japan's calendar of festivals

An exploration of the regional influences that make up Japanese cuisine

Shopping and eating out in Japan as well as understanding the menu

The definitive culinary dictionary, a quick reference glossary, and useful phrases for every food and drink occasion

Tantalizing photography and recipes

Genres: Travel, Japan, Cookbooks

288 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2002

About the author

OUR STORY
A beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure. In 1972 that’s all Tony and Maureen Wheeler needed for the trip of a lifetime – across Europe and Asia overland to Australia. It took several months, and at the end – broke but inspired – they sat at their kitchen table writing and stapling together their first travel guide, Across Asia on the Cheap. Within a week they’d sold 1500 copies and Lonely Planet was born. One hundred million guidebooks later, Lonely Planet is the world’s leading travel guide publisher with content to almost every destination on the planet.

Reviews

[Ant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great little book absolutely packed with information. Written throughout with the enjoyable, ever so dry humor of Lonely planet writer John Ashburne, and garnished with interesting, strange & fun anecdotes by other Japanese petit luminaries, it can be read, & probably should be, in a number of different ways. As a front to back read, there is way too much information to err, digest, so you need to simply let go & enjoy the spirit of culinary adventure in which this was written. But don't even think about retaining much of the Japanese named foods, ingredients, cooking styles, locales, customs, seasonal variations, recipes, etc. unless you are already familiar with the food vocabulary. But this is where the book serves as a wonderful reference, which can be sliced and diced by regions, cooking styles, ingredients, celebrations & most of the above. It is very easy (and enjoyable) to focus on a specific aspect of Japans vast food culture by the books well arranged chapters. If you are wanting to learn some of the language, there is quite enough in here to help you get by & even a chapter committed to practical useful phrases, so this little book, small enough to carry around can be used as a culinary phrasebook as well. Lastly, the book is sprinkled with a small number of easy to follow, simple but classic recipes, so there you have it, a lot in a little book. The photos are pretty good but not inspirational, more just to give you a feel for what is being written about, but while this book is many, a photographic book it is not.
As mentioned, Asburnes writing style is very enjoyable. His knowledge and personal passion of Japans cuisine, its food culture & Japan itself shines through his words and his personal anecdotes. He treads a fine wire sometimes between warning the reader of some things which may be far removed from the common experiences of a western palate, (fermented rotting soy bean and fish sperm serve as two immediate examples) and treating such things as anomalies or weirdness or in any way disrespectful. He balances this with clarity of one comes from one side but loves the other.
In spite of this book being an 'informational' book, it is never a boring read. Glad I read it.

[Ad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to Japanese food and drink, from ingredients to types of restaurants, and from regional dishes to seasonal foods. Foodies should carry this with them, together with Hosking's "Dictionary of Japanese Food." Note that its is a general guide to the overall Japanese food culture, and not a collection of recipes. The practical sections, such as about types of restaurants, are very practical, especially since Hosking doesn't make the mistake to list actual restaurants, as that type of information would soon gave been outdated. The lists of useful Japanese phrases and the culinary dictionary at the end of the book are also very useful for travelers. As usually happens to good books in the perverse publishing universe, it is out of print with no expectation for a reprint.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure how to rate this. It was full of neat little tidbits and info, but not many recipes at all. And I only got it because I thought it was a cookbook, so...

[Niki Ganong · Rating 4 out of 5]

not good for specifics or places to go, just a generally good guide on what to eat

[Mariko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contains a lot of interesting information. I liked the format/layout of the content and the author's writing style/tone, but the grammatical and spelling errors were irritating.

[Aveline Felicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Within a handy-sized book, it contains abundant not-to-miss information especially in Japan. Really recommended for those who love eating and traveling.