Well, I finished the most recent edition of Oishinbo last night; The Joy of Rice. I had been looking forward to it with great curiosity; while editions like Ramen and Gyoza, and Fish, Sushi, Sashimi were titles that I had a fairly good idea regarding what to expect, Joy of Rice, like the previous Vegetables title, was a book that I was less certain about regarding it's content. I knew there was going to be a story about brown vs white rice, and I figured rice balls would get their moment in the sun, but beyond that I wasn't sure what to expect.
Well, all in all this was a good book, leaving me quite satisfied with what was covered. The politics of rice importing and exporting, the history of short grain rice, varieties of rice balls, and various types of Maze Gohan type dishes made for great reading, and, as always, the recipe in the front of the book looks great. I would like to try it, but like some of the previous ones, I've been a bit slack in searching out the ingredients.
I was also a bit pleased that Kaibara Yuzan had little page time in this edition, only showing up in the final story in the book, and even then he made none of the absurd outbursts, threw no temper tantrums, and generally did not act like an overgrown two year old.
The Rice Ball chapter was probably my favorite, although the brown vs white rice one was good as well. It's also noteworthy that this edition had a good deal of environmentalist sentiment in it; almost all of the Oishinbo books do, but this one seemed particularly explicit in some parts. The rice ball chapter has left me eager to try making some rice balls in the future, as it has been a long time (six years) since I last tried, and the results weren't that bad back then either.
The next edition of the series is Pub Food, which sounds fascinating because I know nothing about Japanese pub food and did not even know it existed as a distinct concept until I saw the preorder for this title on Amazon a while back. It's also notable as this one will be coming out about a year after the first edition, which was Japanese Cuisine. So, it comes full circle, in a sense, as both titles are about a STYLE of cooking and presentation, while the rest of the series has focused on either a specific dish (ramen, gyoza, sake, sashimi) or ingredients (rice, vegetables, fish).
This leaves me wondering where they will go from here. I really hope there is more to come, but I can't find any information on titles after Pub Food. So, I decided to make a speculative list on topics I would expect to see covered in the future;
Tea and Sweets.
The Sake edition made it clear that Viz is okay with doing a focus on beverages, and it's kind of surprising that an edition devoted to Tea has not been released or solicited. I would imagine Sweets would fit in with this well as many traditional Japanese sweets, as I understand it, were not deserts per se, but were made for the tea ceremony.
Udon and Soba.
We've already got one on Ramen, but Udon and Soba are pretty important noodles in Japanese cuisine as well. I wouldn't be surprised to see two books, one for each noodle, or perhaps both noodles covered in one book.
Meat, Poultry, and Pork.
I imagine a single volume could cover meats, which, historically, were less common in Japan than other nations, but still make up some famous dishes, like beef pots of various sorts.
Tempura.
One of the most famous Japanese dishes around the world, I think I would be a little let down if the Oishinbo translations finished their run without a Tempura editiion.
Teriyaki.
Another famous Japanese food, I think Teriyaki could merit it's own volume, or perhaps share one with Tempura.
Festival Food.
Flip through an Japanese cookbook and you will find a number of items that are described as being prepared primarily for specific festivals, celebrations, holidays, etc. And many items seen in Oishinbo so far are mentioned as being common for some specific occasion or festival. So it seems a book entirely on festival food would be a cool idea, and a nice companion to Japanese Cuisine and Pub Food.
Will the future editions look like any of the above guesses? If the series goes in, I imagine there will certainly be some similarities, as the translations are six books in and still have a lot of well known ground that can be covered, and given that Oishinbo has ran since 1982, I presume there is more than enough material to work with.
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