"Cookbook" Review: 'Japanese Women Don't Get Old Or Fat', by Naomi Moriyama

 

Every so often, and more often than it ought, the world handles surges of interest in fad diets. From Atkins to grapefruit to paleo, GF, or whatever else, there always seems to be something new and kitschy to try in the search for a foolproof weight loss technique. This one's got a good tagline with a faint ring of truth. It's “Japanese Women Don't Get Old Or Fat”, by Naomi Moriyama.

This is the tale of the author, her husband, and their joint desire to share their experiences with Japanese home cooking. It made them feel healthier, happier, and more energetic, as well as giving them something to research- the reasons why it might have done so, and the history behind its development.

Opening with a wave of statistics about the Japanese lifestyle, the book touts their long lifespan, low rates of obesity and heart disease, low healthcare spending, and many other things. Always be suspicious when statistics are used as primers, because you can use said statistics to say virtually anything you want. 78% of statistics are made up on the spot because they sound so effective!

Obligatory attempt at Logos aside, the next pages turn to Pathos. First comes a dramatic monologue in honor of the culinary skill, creativity, and devotion of the author's mother. As any mother should, she gives all for her children, even if they don't always appreciate it at the time. After that comes a stern diatribe centering on how devoted the Japanese are to freshness- foods not only dated, but *timed* at the supermarkets, and even 7-11s stocking tasty, nutritious composed bento instead of prefab salads and suspect sandwiches. Then came a detour to detail the lifestyle of the glorious and rustic countryside, how everything is so vibrantly flavored, fresh, and full of life!

It all felt so transparent, so obviously fabricated- but I couldn't put my finger on why. Understanding came later.

While the “How to Start Your Tokyo Kitchen” chapter is potentially handy for the novice, the truth is that a good cook already knows what equipment they need to cook dinner, and if they don't have it, improvising isn't hard. Some of the later recipes call for Japanese-exclusive cooking gear, and the author tells you how to jury-rig one. Why not add those to the starting list of equipment in the early chapter- perhaps as a closer? That's a much more suitable time to detail where to get things a bit tougher to find.

Time and pages aplenty are spent emphasizing the importance of at-table garnishes and individual seasoning, in accordance with the Japanese tendency not to individually plate, but rather allow self-service from platters- a technique borrowed from China, just one of many.

It grows quite tedious when a portion of every recipe's ingredient list has 'to use at the table' as a caveat. Such a concept needs explaining one time. After that's done, make a separate section within the recipe for the garnishes and table condiments. It's entirely too easy to confuse an inexperienced cook by piling all the ingredients in one column without adequate direction. Considering the prospective readership, I find this to be a massive, glaring error.

A full third of the book is devoted to what's termed “The Seven Pillars of Japanese Home Cooking”. Fish, Vegetables, Rice, Soy, Noodles, Tea, and Fruit are the vaunted pillars, and while each subsection has several anecdotes and a handful of recipes, most of them are rather banal. For a book that centers around what they term 'healthy eating', the number of recipes that use, say, refined sugar as a fairly prominent ingredient is more than a little bothersome when looked at with a more professional eye.

To counteract that, there are stories aplenty that seek to emphasize the healthy, life-giving qualities of the other ingredients. There's an entire tale that centers around brown rice- the barest film of historical reference is given to the fantastic tale of Tomoe Gozen, then used to create a veneer of confidence in the nutritional superiority of brown rice. I agree with the sentiment entirely, but the method is shifty at best. Fiber isn't a miracle cure.

I admit, I wanted to like this book, but I just can't bring myself to. It's trying to be a cookbook and reference text, but it doesn't have enough recipes to be reasonable as the former, or enough hard nutrition facts to shore up the latter. Mostly it reads like a slapdash memoir, bereft of the aura of legitimacy and believability that often feels so necessary when creating a suitable referential work. It's a collection of vignettes, loosely tied together around the common theme of Japanese home cooking being healthy and happiness inducing. Likewise, the book seems to hedge its bet, making the premise sound like something a person has to try for themselves to see if it works as advertised, rather than to try it and expect results.

If you're willing to trust the book and the author's message, feel free to trust the recipes. Some of the 40-odd recipes sprinkled throughout the book might serve you well, and there is a recipe index in the back. I will not, however, offer any recommendations on which ones are worth trying. 

As for me though, I'm not going to bother. This goes straight back to the library- ideally in the fiction section where it belongs.