Image: MIKI Yoshihito · CC BY 2.0
Japanese Cookbook
- Year
- 1949
- Era
- 20th century
- Origin
- Japan · East Asia
- Language
- English
- Category
- Japan
Compiled by Aya Kagawa and issued in Tokyo by the Tokyo News Service in 1949, the Japanese Cookbook is among the earliest postwar English-language introductions to Japanese home cooking, prepared for an Occupation-era foreign readership. Kagawa, a leading figure in modern Japanese nutrition science and dietetics education, presents standard dishes with measurements and explanations adapted to Western kitchens, making the volume a notable bridge between Japanese culinary tradition and Anglophone audiences.
Cooking from this book
Sukiyaki
Signature dishFew dishes capture the spirit of Aya Kagawa's postwar introduction to Japanese cooking quite like sukiyaki. Simmered at the table in a shallow iron pan, with thinly sliced beef, tofu, and seasonal vegetables glossed in a sweet and savoury broth, it offered Western readers of 1949 an inviting first taste of Japanese hospitality. Kagawa, a pioneering nutritionist, used such communal dishes to present her country's cuisine as approachable, wholesome, and quietly sophisticated.
An editorial note on a dish associated with this book, written for The Coquinist. It is not a reproduction of the book's recipe.
