Japan is not eaten the same way from one end of the archipelago to the other. Each prefecture has its own produce, its own techniques, its own dishes found nowhere else. This page is built prefecture by prefecture, as our travels and our encounters with producers and cooks unfold.
The capital invented sushi as we know it today: Edomae, born on the quays of Edo Bay, designed to be eaten quickly and standing up. It is also home to tempura, the light batter frying that arrived in the sixteenth century, to grilled eel (unagi) and to soba, the buckwheat noodle of the Edo artisans. Tokyo is a city of specialists: one restaurant, one dish, a whole lifetime spent perfecting it.
The former imperial capital gave birth to kaiseki, the multi-course meal that follows the seasons to the letter. The city also lives on its tofu, prized for the purity of its water, on the vegetarian cooking of its Buddhist temples (shojin ryori), and on its obanzai, the Kyoto home cooking, understated and never wasteful. It is, finally, the capital of tea and of wagashi, the sweets conceived to accompany it.
Osaka calls itself “the nation’s kitchen” (tenka no daidokoro). A merchant city, it has made the street its table: takoyaki (octopus balls), okonomiyaki (savoury filled pancake), kushikatsu (breaded skewers). Generous, popular cooking, meant to be shared among friends, the opposite of Kyoto’s restraint a few dozen kilometres away.
The other forty-four prefectures will be added as we travel. Each entry starts with a producer, a cook, or a dish found nowhere else.
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