Lonely Planet Food from the Source - Japan

This is more than just a recipe book, it's a cultural gateway to Japan. The recipes are authentic, well written and pleasingly photographed. There is a little background on each recipe and also some tips for making them at the foot of each ingredient list. Simple food created with much flavour. Beautifully presented book and it would make a great gift for someone or will look good on any bookshelf.

This is a gorgeous book for anyone with a serious interest in Japanese food, and in Japan itself. Part cookery book, part travelogue, it is full of sublime photos of the landscape of Japan and of its food, as well as short profiles of chefs, both professional and amateur. I particularly liked these sections and the things they had to say about their local food - a nice twist on the conventional cookbook.

Very interesting! Great recipes from true local people

This is a rather beautiful cookbook from Lonely Planet (I thought they just did guide books!) and serves as a introduction to Japanese cuisine. the book presents dishes according to each region - chapter 1 is Northern Japan, chapter 2 Tokyo & Central Japan, chapter 3 Kansia, chapter 4 Western Japan and 5 Southern Japan. Each chapter has about 10-15 dishes which are beautifully illustrated with gorgeous photographs. Each dish is introduced with an explanation of the history or particular relevance of the dish. Its pretty high grade stuff and calls for a lot of specialist ingredients. So be prepared for a few trips to your local oriental supermarket or a spot of googling if you actually want to make any recipes. Overall its a great book and I found it fascinating both as an insight into Japanese culture and food. Not sure how many of the recipes I'll actually try though.

This book...this series of books by Lonely Planet, are beautifully photographed and cover many categories of the country's cuisine. And the dishes in them are authentic and delicious. That said, I can only give three stars because only one example of any given category is offered. As an analogy, it's like a book on baking that has just a pound cake recipe in the chapter on cake, or just oatmeal-raisin in the chapter on cookies. No other cakes. No other cookies. One recipe to represent an entire style.