A hands-on account of working through the winter brewing season at one of Japan¡¯s last artisanal sake producers. Features on three seminal restaurants and their chefs in the Kanazawa area. Eating with sumo wrestlers. A day in the life of a ramen master. The latest issue of Fool Magazine (No. 8) delves deep into the recesses of Japan¡¯s food culture.
Published in Sweden, written in English and spanning the world of contemporary and traditional cuisine, each eagerly awaited issue marries a vibrant mix of cutting-edge food writing with the striking photography and design values of founders/co-editors Lotta and Per-Anders Jorgensen.
Together with Thai culinary explorer and ardent Japanophile Poonperm Paitayawat, they spent a total of three months in 2019-20 crisscrossing Japan. The result is their fattest volume to date; at 240 ad- and filler-free pages, it¡¯s so hefty they¡¯ve adopted the Japanese parlance and dubbed it a ¡°mook.¡± It¡¯s also their first to profile a single country and its cuisine.
Besides the cover story on Terada Honke sake brewery by fermentation researcher Maya Hey, the features include a profile of chef Shinobu Namae of Tokyo restaurant ³¢¡¯·¡´Ú´Ú±ð°ù±¹±ð²õ³¦±ð²Ô³¦±ð; a portrait of wild-food chef Akiyoshi Komura by longtime contributor to The Japan Times Nancy Singleton Hachisu; and Paitayawat¡¯s personal homage to the late chef Kenichiro Nishi of the legendary restaurant Kyoaji.
It¡¯s a deep, heady mix, and proved so popular that it sold out in a few short weeks after it was released last autumn. Thankfully, it has been given a second printing and is (for now). Essential new year reading for anyone with an interest in Japanese food.
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