The Manga Guide to Japanese Food

This provides a comprehensive understanding of Japanese cuisine through the perspective of Manabu, a young chef aspiring to become a professional chef. It features mini essays, color illustrations, and photos that cover various aspects of Japanese cooking, such as the importance of fundamental ingredients like rice, soybeans, seaweed, and fish, the beauty of traditional utensils like lacquer ware, ceramics, and knives, the role of fermented ingredients like miso, soy sauce, and sake, the history of sushi, and the concept of "umami" as one of seven flavors detected by the human tongue. It also includes a quiz at the end to assess the reader's understanding of Japanese cuisine.