Building An Understanding Of Washoku From The Ground Up
As a cook looking at a traditional Japanese meal, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the seemingly complex arrangements of dishes, or the varied preparations called for. Here we hope to break these kind of meals down into their most basic components; to understand why certain elements are present and how to compose your own meals in a way that embodies the spirit of what makes Washoku so uniquely satisfying to prepare and share with others.
At its core, the cooking techniques associated with Washoku are, and should be simple. To prepare good, even great Washoku meals, the cook does not need to rely on elaborate recipes or procedures only achievable in the finest professional kitchens, but rather a core of simple, and practiced techniques. Many of the recipes we will look at as part of our discussions will only involve a few ingredients, brief or minimal cooking processes, and the combination of simple components to form meals greater than the sum of their parts.
While we build our own understanding of what Washoku means we hope to share and learn along side this community, through recipes, discussions of techniques, and the meals we have enjoyed both in Japan and abroad. We hope that you will join us in building a better global understanding of this unique food culture and what it means in our modern culinary landscape.
-Philip Wolfe
