By Eric Harris
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| © Japanese Culinary Academy |
At my dinner table, my toughest critics aren’t editors or readers—they’re my two young daughters. Like many parents, I face the nightly battle of picky eaters. Rather than surrendering to dinosaur-shaped nuggets and boxed mac and cheese, I’ve expanded my repertoire, experimenting with flavors and techniques from around the world. Japanese cuisine has become an unexpected ally in this effort to get my kids to eat real food.
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| © Japanese Culinary Academy / Kuma Masashi |
That nightly struggle made me curious about resources that go deeper than recipes, so when Things To Do In LA learned that Kodansha USA would be distributing a new English-language edition of the Japanese Culinary Academy’s Complete Japanese Cuisine series, I leaped at the chance to review it. Described as the “definitive resource for traditional Japanese cooking,” the series is ambitious: each volume is a book-length exploration of a theme or technique, offering a level of comprehensiveness rarely available outside formal culinary training. For those who want to move beyond step-by-step cookbooks into the deeper cultural and technical foundations of Japanese cuisine, it fills a crucial gap.
For Los Angeles readers, this series also resonates with the city’s own history. Little Tokyo has long been a gateway for Japanese flavors into American dining, home to the country’s first sushi bar, the first shabu shabu restaurant, and the first Japanese curry restaurant. It also boasts Kouraku, the oldest continuously operating ramen shop in the United States. Little Tokyo is even tied to the origin story of the California roll—most often credited to Ichiro Mashita at the former Tokyo Kaikan in Little Tokyo. What began in Little Tokyo—once the largest Japantown in the United States—radiated outward from this historic district, shaping how Americans understand and enjoy Japanese food. Reviewing this series for Things To Do In LA feels like a natural extension of that legacy: connecting the roots of traditional Japanese cuisine to the cultural landscape of Los Angeles.
As a Hollywood-adjacent arts and culture writer and a fourth-generation Japanese American, my family meals reflect that blend: mostly home-cooked, minimally processed food rooted in American traditions, but with a healthy smattering of European and Japanese influences. My interest in Japanese cuisine is not simply in reproducing dishes as they exist in Japan, but in weaving flavors, aesthetics, and techniques into a repertoire that reflects both heritage and adaptation. Applying Japanese culinary concepts outside their original context requires a deep understanding of their foundations—precisely what this series provides.
The First Volume: Essential but Less Compelling
The opening volume, Introduction to Japanese Cuisine: Nature, History and Culture, is well written, richly illustrated, and comprehensive in scope. Yet as an introduction, it is also the least “reviewable” of the series. It reads more like a cultural textbook or coffee table volume than a cookbook, and it shines brightest not as a standalone work but as the cultural and historical backbone that enriches the technical volumes that follow. It introduces the foundations of washoku: the principle of shun (seasonality), the five basic cooking techniques, the centrality of umami, and the rituals that shape Japanese dining.
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| © Japanese Culinary Academy / Kuma Masashi |
While recipes are included, many are geared toward professionals and assume prior knowledge, with much of the technical detail covered in companion volumes. One early example is a chilled turtle soup served in a winter melon (Reisei Mame-tōgan Suppon Kenchin). It’s a fascinating dish—even for readers who might hesitate at the idea of turtle—but it also demonstrates the book’s limits as a standalone resource. To prepare it properly, you’d need to draw on knowledge scattered across the series: dashi in Flavor and Seasonings, turtle and fish butchery in Mukoita I, shellfish in Mukoita II, and simmering techniques in later volumes. This is where the book’s role becomes clear: less a practical manual, more a cultural and historical foundation for the rest of the series.
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| © Japanese Culinary Academy / Kuma Masashi |
Lessons Beyond Japan
The lessons I’ve drawn from studying traditional Japanese cuisine aren’t abstract—they’ve reshaped the way I cook for my family. Understanding umami as a structural principle has changed the way I season soups and sauces across cuisines. Knife techniques honed through Japanese practice have sharpened my approach to Western preparations. Even aesthetics—balance of color, texture, and negative space—have influenced how I plate meals at home.
Parenting has also shown me that Japanese cuisine has underappreciated potential for picky eaters. Japanese food may only make up about 5% of our family meals, but it’s an essential 5%. Sometimes novelty is all that’s needed to keep everyone at the table happy: yakitori-style skewers (smaller format, playful alternative to backyard barbecue); oblong Japanese-style meatballs (spark more curiosity than spherical ones); takoyaki pans (adapt to kid-friendly fillings beyond octopus); Japanese curry (beloved solo or as British-inspired pot pie filling); even decorative garnishes coax smiles. And teriyaki—whether chicken, salmon, or beef—is universally loved.
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| © Japanese Culinary Academy / Kuma Masashi |
These small adaptations underscore why learning traditional Japanese cuisine matters. It’s not just about reproducing Japanese dishes or flavors as they exist in Japan, but about weaving Japanese principles into a broader repertoire—whether in a professional kitchen, a cultural essay, or a family dinner where picky eaters need a little extra coaxing.
Conclusion
The Japanese Culinary Academy’s Complete Japanese Cuisine series is a five-star achievement, one of the most ambitious and rewarding Japanese culinary resources available in English. Taken as a whole, it offers a depth of cultural and technical knowledge that few other works can match. Individually, however, the volumes vary in how compelling they are to read. Introduction to Japanese Cuisine: Nature, History and Culture is the least exciting in that sense—its textbook-like format will not appeal to everyone. Yet it is also the most essential, the foundation upon which the rest of the series rests.
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| © Japanese Culinary Academy / Kuma Masashi |
This first volume is best read alongside its companions—Yakiba: Grilling Techniques and Flavor and Seasonings: Dashi, Umami, and Fermented Foods for flavor and fire, or Mukoita I: Fish and Mukoita II: Seafood, Poultry, and Vegetables for knife work and butchery. Together, they form a library that bridges the gap between professional training and the curiosity of advanced home cooks.
For chefs, culinary students, cultural enthusiasts, and home cooks alike, Introduction to Japanese Cuisine provides the grounding that makes the rest of the series shine. It may not sparkle on its own, but like the hidden stock in a good soup, it deepens everything around it—whether that’s the technical detail of later volumes or the nightly meals that keep my family at the table. From Little Tokyo’s pioneering restaurants to my daughters’ plates in Southern California, this book reminds us that Japanese cuisine is more than recipes: it is a foundation for creativity, adaptation, and connection across generations.
Disclosure: The publisher provided Things To Do In LA with a complimentary advance copy of this book for review. No payment or editorial input was received, and the opinions expressed are entirely independent.
