Oishinbo, Food Manga

I've been reading these entertaining manga (Japanese print cartoons) books called Oishinbo that were released in English about a year and a half ago. The original series began in the early 1980's and have spawned a worldwide following including a hit television show. The name of the series are taken from the Japanese words oishii which means delicious, and kuishinbo which is a person who loves to eat.

The premise of Oishinbo involves two rival Tokyo newspapers aiming to devise "the ultimate Japanese menu." At one newspaper company, a lazy young reporter name Yamaoka with extensive Japanese food knowledge is in charge of producing the menu. At the other newspaper, his father Kaibara-sensei who is considered the ultimate gourmand and the head of a elitist food club is in charge of their retaliatory "supreme" menu.

Did I mention they hate each other?

I've read about three of the series so far as one of them can be finished in a single sitting. The only semi-complicated thing about them is that in true manga form, they are read from what we would think of as back cover to front and from top right to bottom left. But this really only takes two minutes to get used to and soon you'll be reading manga like a pro.

While reading these you may began to understand why passion for food, particularly of high quality, runs deep in Japanese people. Dishes and ingredients are not fictionalized and actual recipes for a dish highlighted at some point in a story is included at the beginning of each of the 7 English published books.

In Japanese Cuisine the first book of the series, there's one scene where Yamaoka-san and Kaibara-sensei are having a contest to see who can make the best rice dish. The older Kaibara wins because one of the things his cook did was remove any singular grains of rice that were broken, dark or cracked (picks them out against a black background to spot them easier) so the rice cooks more uniformly.

Why would one go to those painstaking details for cooking something especially when generally it would be marginally detectable? Because as the surly father proclaims "The most important thing in raising food to the level of an art form is to touch the hearts of those who eat it.. And the only thing that can touch a person's heart is another person's heart..."

That is the soul and spirit of Japan and the backbone of its cooking that has been most infectious with me.