Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
by
Victoria Abbott Riccardi
Order:
USA
Can
Broadway, 2004 (2003)
Hardcover, Paperback
Read an Excerpt
Reviewed by Hilary Williamson
U
ntangling My Chopsticks
is the first culinary travel book that I have encountered and it made me salivate on almost every page. I have been to Kyoto, visited temples and monasteries, even stayed at a traditional ryokan, but I did not glimpse the city that Victoria Abbott Riccardi (a freelance food, nutrition, and travel writer) grew to know so well.
R
iccardi arrived in Kyoto in 1986. She worked there as an English teacher, lived for a while with the family of her Japanese friend Tomiko, and studied '
tea kaiseki
' (her primary reason for the trip). Many will have heard of the Japanese tea ceremony (or read of it in
Shogun
) but few know of '
chakaiseki (tea kaiseki), a highly ritualized cuisine that accompanies the formal tea ceremony.
' The author shares her love for the city of Kyoto and its lifestyle, and her appreciation of Japanese cuisine in general, and of the '
spiritual ballet
' of tea kaiseki in particular. Most chapters end with a set of recipes for food mentioned in the text.
R
iccardi tells us '
what is so bewitching about Japan: things seem so easy until you try to understand them
' and that '
draw the curtain aside, learn the language, and you face a web of complicated mazes
', a culture that is essentially impenetrable by
gaijin
(outsiders). Sharing the author's account of her life in Kyoto, I learned a great deal about customs (that I wish I had known while in Japan) - for example expectations regarding gift giving - and enjoyed reading about details such as those involved in Japanese New Year celebrations. I recommend
Untangling My Chopsticks
as a
must read
for anyone planning to visit, or live in, Japan.
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