The Art and Craft of Japanese Cooking: Artisans, Chefs, Recipes

Drawing on decades spent living in rural Japan, food writer Nancy Singleton Hachisu presents a portrait of contemporary Japanese cooking through the work of chefs, producers, and artisans across the country. Combining recipes, essays, and photography, the book explores the relationship between regional ingredients, craftsmanship, and modern restaurant cooking. 

The recipes, developed in collaboration with seven Japanese chefs, range from traditional preparations to dishes shaped by French and Italian influences, while remaining grounded in Japanese technique and seasonality. Seafood, vegetables, ferments, and preserved ingredients feature prominently throughout, alongside essays on producers of miso, soy sauce, sea greens, umeboshi, whisky, and other staples of the Japanese pantry. 

Hachisu, known for her extensive writing on Japanese food culture and recipient of a James Beard Award, approaches the subject with both technical attention and deep familiarity with everyday cooking life in Japan. More than a recipe collection, the book serves as a study of regional food traditions and the people sustaining them. 

Foreword by Alice Waters.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.