We differ from other classes...

• We focus on traditional and rural food styles including little-known regional specialities.

• We provide you with carefully researched historic, cultural and environmental context to the food you learn to cook.

• We promote the use of safe, healthy, eco-friendly and wholefood ingredients in our cooking.

• We encourage a 'no-waste' approach to cooking and provide you with practical ideas to minimise food wastage.

• We provide practical guidance to groceries shopping for your Japanese cooking.

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Japanese food appears to have taken the world by storm recently. More and more Japanese restaurants are opening up outside of Japan. Popular Japanese dishes are now on the everyday menu around the world. The health benefits of the Japanese cuisine have been touted as something of a mantra. However, do we really know what traditional Japanese food is? What do the ordinary Japanese eat at home? Do we know what is inside those packages in Japanese groceries stores or how to use it? Is Japanese food really that healthy?    

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The fact is most Japanese food we experience as outsiders little resembles the centuries-old traditional Japanese diet that is healthy and founded on the philosophy of ‘waste not, want not’. Within Japan, the average diet today has lost the 'superfood' qualities of the traditional diet, and the modern consumerist lifestyle is leading to an alarming amount of food wastage. Outside of Japan, a huge range of traditional, healthy Japanese ingredients and recipes remain practically unknown, as menus focus on the popular (and sometimes not-so-healthy) dishes. Some dishes we consider 'traditional' actually are quite recent introductions to the Japanese diet. Worst of all, many commercially manufactured Japanese food items today are tainted with additives, negating any health benefits they may have offered.

 

The good news is that genuinely healthy, eco-friendly food traditions remain alive and well in Japan. Some of these traditions are truly ancient, with prehistoric ‘aboriginal’ origins. The ‘no waste’ approach and seasonal eating has sustained the traditional Japanese food culture for over 15000 years in a small, mountainous island nation. Japan boasts one of the most diverse fermented food traditions in the world, health benefits of which are now becoming widely recognised. In regional Japan, artisans continue to handcraft food using time-honoured methods, and households uphold recipes passed down countless generations using fresh locally sourced ingredients. The rapidly growing organic and 'real' food movement in Japan has boosted the range of ‘safe and healthy’ Japanese food items now available in shops. 

 

We invite you to discover with us the 'real' Japanese food, as the ordinary Japanese have traditionally enjoyed over countless generations. We are passionate about spreading the ancient wisdom of the traditional Japanese food culture, with its important messages on how we can all enjoy a healthy and balanced diet, reduce food waste, and care for our environment. We differ from other Japanese cooking classes in focusing on traditional and rural food styles, including many region-specific recipes hardly known outside Japan. We provide you with the historical, cultural and environmental context to the food you learn to cook, based on years of research and interactions with food artisans and primary producers in regional Japan. We also promote the use of safe, healthy, eco-friendly and wholefood ingredients in our cooking instructions, and provide practical guidance for your groceries shopping. We sincerely hope that you get the very best out of your Japanese food experience.