A Cuisine to Love:
Learning from ancient and modern Japan
I’ve treasured Russ Rudzinski’s Japanese Country Cookbook that I obtained from some forgotten bookstore in Kansas City during my early 20s. It’s long out of print but there are many copies available from used booksellers. It’s a work of art as much as a cookbook. One reviewer wrote, “I, too, have the Mingei Ya cook book. I bought it at the restaurant after dining there just after my 21st birthday (it was my first legal drink).
“The place was fantastic. One truly felt that as if you were dining at a Japanese country inn. Tatami mat floors, no chairs and remove your shoes at the entrance. Kimono-clad waitresses served you and their English was so bad that ordering was often accomplished by pointing at menu items. You want a fork and knife? No such things existed at Mingei Ya. The food was sublime. It was one of the best dining experiences I have had in my life. And the book has been used ever since.”
A review of four recipes from the book: https://www.dispatch.com/story/lifestyle/food/2017/10/11/japanese-recipes-yield-flavorful-dishes/18330453007/
About chicken mizutaki from Craig Claiborne in the NYT 1981:
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/25/garden/q-a-106757.html
Another book about Japan that I keep close at hand is Just Enough by Azby Brown. It describes,
in many illustrations and writings, the simple wisdom of late Edo-period Japan,
when people lived in close harmony with nature. Sustainability was built into
all they did. You used the resources available to you on your homestead, with
very little added from outside.There was no such thing as waste. Even the "night soil" was carefully collected and used on the crops.
We can learn so much about food and sustenance from Japan through the ages. How about the World War II era in the United States, when many Japanese people were confined to internment camps? The book Tabemasho! Let’s Eat! By Gil Asakawa covers this in a lighthearted way. Leave it to the Japanese to make do and adapt to adverse and changing situations. He writes that they even made tasty dishes from such wartime rations as corned beef hash, Vienna sausages, and Spam. In fact, even today, Spam appears on the menu at upscale Japanese restaurants.
Asakawa writes that interred Japanese people even grew soybeans to make their own tofu, miso, and soy sauce.
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