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Foreword

I first came to Japan as a student where, living with a Japanese family, I began to absorb the rhythms of everyday life—especially the rhythms of the kitchen with its aromas and flavors. My introduction to Japanese food began—quite literally—by learning to eat fish and soup for breakfast. In subsequent years I returned to Japan often and, after living there for eleven fascinating years, now count it as a second home.

My love of Japanese cooking has traversed every stage of my adult life—as a college student, as a young mother with infant child, as a mom with a growing family, and as an empty nester. It has been a decades-long learning experience. Along the way I studied Japanese cooking with Michiko Odagiri, Japan’s Julia Child, and for a year, weekly, with another cooking teacher in her apartment kitchen, learning katei ryoori—home style cooking. All along the way I was constantly cooking with Japanese friends. Even with this background, my copy of Richard Hosking’s wonderful book was never far from my side and served as an invaluable companion— whether I was preparing nabe in Tokyo or bento in Boston. As a food writer for The Boston Globe, I often write about japanese cuisine and culture and find this book to be a great reference source. When I finally sat down to write My Japanese Table: A Lifetime of Cooking with Friends and Family (Tuttle, 2011), Hosking was again always at my side.

There has been an explosion of interest in Japanese cuisine and an unanticipated number of cookbooks have appeared in English since the late 1990s when Hosking first published his wonderful dictionary. Japanese restaurants have expanded beyond the hip urban centers and sushi has become available in supermarkets worldwide. From Boston to Berlin, Japanese cuisine has progressed beyond teriyaki and sukiyaki. Thanks to anime and manga, food that once was the exclusive province of academics or international travelers is now available to mass publics and people of every age around the world.

Hosking is himself an accomplished scholar. And, as you will discover, even though his explanations go beyond what you normally find in the glossary of a cookbook, they all are eminently accessible. Even the occasional esoterica, like his explanation of making the traditional Japanese sweet wasanbon sugar, is engaging.

A Dictionary of Japanese Food, Ingredients & Culture packs a powerful, but compact punch. In the hands of a different author, the volume and quality of information would require triple the amount of space—and likely also the price. Interspersed with the facts are Hosking’s personal opinions and philosophy of food and culture, obtainable only by one who has become intimate with daily life in Japan after living and working there for 25 years.

Ever the purist, Hosking avoids including some Japanese comfort food staples like kare rice (curry rice), a Japanese adaptation of a British adaptation of Indian cuisine that is uniquely Japanese and enjoyed by everyone in Japan. But, as he explains, his book is not about food that is eaten in Japan, it is about Japanese food.

This dictionary is a treasure trove of information for serious home cooks, professional chefs, travelers, restaurant goers, and dabblers in Japanese culture generally. It takes you to places you didn’t know you wanted to go—but will be very glad to have visited, including the whys and the science of Japanese food.

For example, I learned long ago how to make dashi, the smoky Japanese bonito fish stock that is the underpinning for most soups and sauces in Japanese cuisine, from scratch. I was taught how to soak the konbu, and scatter the katsuboshi flakes in the just boiled water. But I didn’t know why this combination was so important. Hosking explains that the chemical reaction which occurs between the ingredients are what creates the desired result. I love learning something new, and it happens every time I open this book.

The appendices contain supplementary explanations on topics or ingredients in need of greater detail like the tea ceremony and the family meal. His entry on umami, the savory fifth taste—discovered in Japan and another element of Japanese cuisine that has seeped into food talk far from Japan’s shores—is priceless.

The list of Japanese ingredient names that no longer need translation is much longer today than when Hosking compiled his original list. Words like edamame, wasabi, udon and nori no longer need translation these days as they have become a part of our culinary vocabulary.

This is no simple dictionary. In describing fish for sashimi or for grilling, Hosking tells you everything about it from the waters of its origin to its proper dimensions. But he does not merely pair words with descriptions. In his discussion of wasabi, for example, you learn not only about how and where it grows (in the shade and water of mountains)—but also how to process it and with what kind of grater as well as how it is used, mixed with soy sauce for dipping; he also alerts us to the contents of cans of wasabi powder and tubes of wasabi paste, so readily available and widely used both inside and outside of Japan.

Hosking’s pedagogy takes many forms, including entries that appear as romanized Japanese words as well as in kanji and one of the two Japanese syllabaries, hiragana or katakana. There is also a section that takes the reader from English to Japanese, so you can quickly learn that abalone is awabi in Japanese. He reaches beyond food to explain table settings, to unpack the constitution of a meal, what is obento, and even to introduce quirky eating establishments such as Japan’s ubiquitous akachochin, the tiny informal drinking establishments signified by a red lantern hanging at the entrance.

The presentation and appearance of Japanese food is of supreme importance. Indeed, one often hears the Japanese say that “we eat with our eyes” (me de taberu). Hosking explains that the way the Japanese meal looks—its careful arrangement on plates according to colors and seasons—is as important as the way it tastes. The reader learns along the way that cooking Japanese is more than simply a matter of following a recipe but is a method of carefully crafting a presentation.

There are no recipes in this book. But once you start cooking Japanese cuisine at home, you will reach for it again and again. In closing, a phrase used by the Japanese at the beginning of a meal, seems most appropriate here—“Itadakimasu!”

—Debra Samuels

Boston, Massachusetts

July 2014