Kibō - a philanthropic book on Tohoku cuisine

[Sō Haruko]

www.kibocooking.com/

Elizabeth Andoh (she of Washoku and Kansha) has written an ebook celebrating and recording the regional cuisine of Tohoku, the area of Japan devastated by last year's disasters.

50% of both her proceeds and the publisher's proceeds are going to help the folks in Tohoku as they recover, through Sponsor Fellows for Tohoku and Japanfs Recovery.

The book itself is fascinating. Its emphasis is soundly on the region and on their special dishes and local foods (did you know that Tohoku produced 80% of Japan's wakame before the tsunami?), though it does also include dishes that were the first "on the ground" to the refugees, including onigiri.

While I'd be hard-pressed to name any of these dishes as necessarily within our time period, I think it's a wonderful insight into the people of the area, and what their cuisine and region is like.

The book is available in many digital formats, and is a mere $4 for over 160 pages. Well worth it even without the charitable donation.

[Yawata Saburou Tadamori]

I just bought and read it. Wow!
As a chef, this is invaluable, as a student of Japanese foodways it's even better!

Thank you for the advertisement.

[Sō Haruko]

You are welcome! I thought it was such a fascinating read that I had to share. So glad you enjoyed it too. (:

I am such a sucker for Japanese cookbooks, but this one is really unique. I would love to see more cookbooks that focus on the regional cuisines; I know Osaka cuisine is different from Kyoto, say, but not how and why. And I just find it so interesting -- what grows well in one place, what regional specialties there are ... I love that kind of thing.