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Though Japanese restaurants have popped up like bean sprouts throughout the U.S., all but the most intrepid American cooks refrain from emulating their cuisine. A pity. For, as Master Chef and Teacher Shizuo Tsuji demonstrates hi Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art (Kodansha; $14.95), Japanese food at its best is intrinsically austere, as much a matter of balance—texture, flavors, colors and freshness—as anything else. Not unlike Escoffier and the gurus of nouvelle cuisine, the Japanese chef insists: "Let little seem like much, as long as it is fresh and beautiful." Tsuji, a former journalist with a degree in French literature who trained with some of Europe's greatest chefs, has written more than a cookbook: his 517-page tome is both an essay on the culinary philosophy of his country and an explanation of the cultural background of its foods. Along the way, he shows in words and excellent artwork the basic repertory, from sushi to a gala banquet consisting of as many as 30 small portions.
This admirable volume, with an introduction by M.F.K. Fisher, includes charts of North American and Japanese fish and an exhaustive list of U.S. stores where Japanese ingredients and implements can be bought. Tsuji-san is a man of all seasonings: in addition to a wallful of international culinary awards, he boasts one of the world's most extensive private collections of Bach recordings, is an authority on ice cream and has written 29 books. This must be his most valuable.
The Italians, fortunately, are resistant to culinary trends. After all, pasta is pasta is pasta. Nevertheless, ever since the tales of Marco Polo's bringing back ice cream and noodles from the Far East, Italy has been receptive to worthy new dishes and techniques. This apertura is explored in The New Italian Cooking (Atlantic-Little, Brown; $15) by Margaret and G. Franco Romagnoli, who in two previous books have done a commendable job of explicating la cucina italiana for Americans. Their new book largely concerns itself with the adaptation of traditional recipes to contemporary methods and lifestyles: using an electric pasta machine; preparing a ragú in 45 minutes instead of the conventional four hours. For lagniappe, the Romagnolis offer some interesting modifications of traditional formulas, such as leg of lamb with gin and lemon spaghetti. A handy companion book is Teresa Gilardi Candler's Vegetables the Italian Way (McGraw-Hill; $12.95). Candler, the daughter of a restaurant family in Turin, brings the U.S. a choice, non-cultist collection of vegetable recipes that include such rare surprises as artichoke bread, zucchini chocolate cake and artichokes with filets of sole.