Before mechanical refrigeration was available, people throughout the world struggled with keeping fresh food from spoiling. A variety of ingenious techniques were developed including drying fresh food in well-ventilated shade. In Japan, the resulting foods are known collectively as kambutsu (literally, “dried things”) and are an important category of comestibles in both home and professional pantries.  Indeed the traditional…

Takénoko (bamboo) shoots that are left to grow become mature pole-like bamboo trees.The youngest, most tender, barely breaking-through-the-ground shoots, however, are edible after brief parboiling (instructions on how to do this in this month’s KITCHEN CULTURE Blog).  The flavor potential of takénoko can be awoken in many ways. Indeed, bamboo shoots easily become the focus of a menu, served…

Ceramics and tea culture are both close to my heart so when Hosai Matsubayashi XVI invited me to practise pottery at Asahiyaki it felt like a dream come true. In November 2023 I embarked on a research trip to Japan for my book on what we could learn from Japanese craftspeople, shokunin, to improve how we…

The world’s oldest known cookbook, “The Art of Cooking,” attributed to Marcus Gavius Apicius (AD 14–37) contains a “recipe” for garum, a funky fish sauce made by layering fatty fish with salt and packing the mix in clay pots. When set in the hot sun for several months, the contents of the pots fermented. The fermented…

Akila Inouye runs the Tsukiji Soba Academy in Tokyo. A fan of molecular cuisine, his teaching method relies on getting to know the history of soba, grasping the underlying chemistry of its preparation and of course cooking and eating them in different ways. In November 2023 I embarked on a research trip to Japan for…

Zoom-Zoom sent Japanophile Steve Beimel to meet some of the craftsmen and craftswomen in Mazda’s home city, Hiroshima. Words Steve Beimel / Images Eric Micotto Though fine craft traditions exist around the world, there may be no country that exceeds Japan in the sheer number and depth of master-level disciplines, truly rarefied expressions of the human…

This collective offers illustrators the chance to represent the Japanese capital by adapting the style of covers from ‘The New Yorker’. With regard to press illustration, the publication that has long been considered an international reference is The New Yorker, founded in 1925. Across the world, graphic designers have since paid homage to the American magazine,…

Like many foods the Japanese currently enjoy, its likely that miso originated in China and traveled by way of the Korean peninsula arriving in Japan in the 6th century,  In the Heian Period (794-1185 AD) miso was considered a precious medicine. By the 12th century, nutrient-dense miso became an important part of the samurai’s daily…

Kumquats are called kinkan 金柑 in Japanese, meaning “golden citrus.” The scientific name is Citrus japonica, though the fruit is native to south-east China where they have been cultivated for hundreds of years. There are dozens of varieties of kumquats. The round Marumi and Meiwa are the most popular in Japan while oval-shaped Nagami fruits are more…

Alongside the first-time English publication of his essays, an exhibition on the Mono-ha artist surveys his extensive work on the medium. Kishio Suga’s sculptures and installations are muted, simple in their elements. But after close observation, one may notice the hidden truths of our surroundings beginning to articulate themselves. An exhibition running from January 15…