Elizabeth Andoh has been releasing books on Japanese cuisine since the ’80s, but her finest work is
Washoku, a 2005 tome on Japanese home cooking. I love the book. My Japanese grandmother lived in our apartment building on the floor below us while I was growing up, and was a good Japanese home cook. Flipping through the pages of Washoku always brings me back to her living room, where she’d eat while watching Japanese soap operas, the smell of soy sauce, smoky dashi, and vinegar in the air.

If all you know of Japanese cuisine is sushi, ramen, and teriyaki, there’s no better way to discover the kinds of things Japanese people really eat at home than this book.

We cook from the heart (kokoro) and express our feelings with our dishes. In this book, Elizabeth Andoh conveys the way of the Japanese kokoro through cooking to people around the world.

Andoh is at once lyrical and meticulous, taking the reader effortlessly from the profundities of Japanese philosophy to practical and novel culinary techiques…

Elizabeth Andoh’s groundbreaking cookbook introduces Western audiences to the age-old concept of washoku, the art of creating nutritional and aesthetic harmony at the table, one that transforms our thinking about Japanese cuisine and culture. Composed with deep scholarship and loving craftsmanship, Washoku is filled with authentic recipes and personal stories that place the Japanese cooking and dining experience in a much needed cultural perspective only an insider could share.