Cooking japanese

I love cooking. I am looking for an easyish read from either manga or web novel about cooking style ( wanna learn new cooking vocab and in interesting ways) but not as eccentric as shokugeki no souma as I want to be able to read about it in public… if you have any suggestions they ould be greatly appreciated thanks!

3 Likes

Think the best way to lean new cooking vocab is to get an actual cookbook. :stuck_out_tongue:

http://www.cookpad.com/

4 Likes

This manga has only a few pages per chapter and recipes after each:

And the classic cooking manga, featured at the manga museum in Kyoto:

I think I learned more by watching cooking videos on YouTube. papadesuyo777 has subtitles in English and Japanese (and other contributed languages).

1 Like

See, this is where English is ambiguous. What “Japanese” do you want to cook?

日本語?
和食?
日本人?

15 Likes

I know this doesn’t fit in the topic “Reading”, but…

I’m currently doing Japanese language tandem exchange and last week I casually mentioned that I wanted to learn how to roll a sushi (meaning just practice by myself at home, using YouTube videos as guide, not expecting any help from her).

She said, “Oh, I can teach you that. It’s not difficult at all. Why don’t you come to my place some time and we’ll make sushi together?”

9 Likes

This should get you started ! :wink:

Edit: I mean, if you want to do some actual cooking too that is

1 Like

I like how tasty 日本人 are

6 Likes

Manga:
Osake ha FuuFuu ni Natte Kara (Technically about alcohol but well worth a read- available on Amazon JP)
Nagisa Shokudou (Bookwalker)
Shinmai Shimai no Futari Gohan (Bookwalker)

LN:
Isekai Shokudou (Bookwalker- can be a little challenging)/

Hope these help :smiley:

1 Like

I don’t know how the manga is, but I liked the anime of chuuka ichiban. Essentially it is about a Chinese boy (This might be a disqualifier, although the anime is Japanese) who aims to become the best of chef’s after his mother, considered one of the greatest in China.
It’s pretty easy to find a few episodes with English subs, I’m not sure about the raw manga, though…

If you don’t mind shoujo manga, you could also try yumeiro patisierre. This has more the school with cooking matches format than chuuka ichiban. In that sense it’s similar to shokugeki no souma, but much more girly (shoujo, duh…) and with, let’s say, less skin.

Unfortunately I’m more famliar with anime than Japanese cooking, so that’s all I can share…

1 Like

Then there’s 甘々と稲妻 (= Sweetness and Lightning in the English translation), which is essentially a cooking manga, but is pretty cute as well. It’s also got recipes on the pages between chapters.

2 Likes

I love that anime (Sweetness and Lightning), and have been reading the manga in English… how difficult is the Japanese version?

The other manga/anime about food I really liked was Izakaya Nobu, again only reading the English version >_<

No idea, I’ve never checked. The preview on Amazon doesn’t look too bad.

Maybe I should suggest that for a future book club. :slightly_smiling_face:

3 Likes

I have the first volume, but haven’t gotten around to reading it, so I can’t speak to grammar. But looking through it, it doesn’t have furigana except for names, if that matters to you at this stage, but the text is a decent size, so that’s helpful for looking up new words.

1 Like

Do you need a Kindle app to be able to see previews on Amazon? Because otherwise, I can’t seem to find one in the images, it doesn’t appear to have that “look inside” feature they have for a lot of books.

Thanks! I’m quite tempted to perhaps get it at some point just to see what it’s like, and I can use the English edition to compare with.

I’m on a desktop, and it works just fine for me. I’m not even logged in.

You tried clicking on the book’s cover, I assume?

The classic series Oishinbo is all about food and cooking. I loved the bits that were published in English.

2 Likes

Cooking, cooking… well these series have lots of food in them. I’m pretty sure something usefull you’ll get from these. And all of them are on netflix, at least on the spanish one.

Midnight Dinner: Tokyo Stories
Japanese Style Originator
Samurai Gourmet
Hairy Bikers’ Asian Adventure (Episode 4)
Kantaro: The Sweet Tooth Salaryman
Jiro dreams of Sushi

I hope it helps. If not, they are worth a watch any way! :slight_smile:

2 Likes

This is a great recommendation. In particular the fish anthology in English is super interesting. There is a three part story that takes you through the various different fish parasites you can get from sushi and what is done to prevent them.

Back on the main topic I second the recommendation for downloading the cookpad app. There are also a bunch of apps that have videos and recipes together; Kurashiro, cookpadTV etc.

It’s worth picking up a few cookbooks as well. Recipes in general are easy to read once you pick up a few key words. I always buy a cookbook or two when I am in japan. I’m currently using this one a lot. A very popular 精進料理 cookbook, vegitarian and delicious.

Also if you want to get really serious, pick up a copy (in English and several other western languages) of Nancy Singleton Hachisu’s “Japan”. It is probably the best Japanese cookbook out there, almost scholarly in its approach.

YvJB6ot

2 Likes

I thought this a great book for both cooking and language learning. All pages have left side Japanese, right side English (even with metric/US fist conversion)…very thorough but easy.

2 Likes