When it comes to travel writing, the pleasure is often purely vicarious. Travelling dirt tracks hanging off the back of a truck, hunkering down in slumlands, trading life-stories with nuns up a mountain - all very well, but deep down I'm happy to let the author get on with it, while I curl up with their latest book and hot mug of green tea.
When it comes to Sushi and Beyond though, I'm achingly jealous of Michael Booth. Who wouldn't love to book an open ticket to Tokyo and spend the next three months ravenously eating their way round Japan?
Dining with sumo-wrestlers, infiltrating the haute cuisine world of kaiseki, visiting konbu farms, tasting 27-year aged soy sauce, getting to the bottom of the beer-boozing Kobe cow myth -- print media may or may not be dying a slow death, but oh the joy to be a travelling journalist. Booth gets backstage at Japan's number one food TV show, visits the Ajinomoto HQ to ask some pressing questions about MSG, and meets the heads of Japan's top two cookery schools (one of whom pulls out his diary and invites him to 'the best restaurant in Japan' - an invite-only venue where the food allegedly made Robuchon cry).
The author's wife and two young children also come along for the ride, leading to trips to dog cafes (dogs are the entertainment, not dinner), a parasite museum, and spending small fortunes on Pokémon - but all this just adds to the fun and frolics. Booth does a great line in dry, self-deprecating humour -- never patronising, occasionally bumbling, always tongue-in-cheek.
It's not often a book hits all the right spots: food, travel, and a good dose of funny. Sushi and Beyond manages all three, along with great writing and, of course, Japan in all its foodie glory.
Now the only question is: what's next on the reading list? Japan/foodie reads - any recommendations, folks?
Sushi and Beyond at Amazon.co.uk
www.michael-booth.com - author's blog
PS: If you've ever wanted to go to cookery school, check out Doing Without Delia (also published as Sacré Cordon Bleu), in which Booth spends a year in Paris at the Cordon Bleu. Equally hilarious.
I just read this book too! Totally agree with you - absolutely hilarious and really quite interesting.
Posted by: Su-Lin | May 24, 2010 at 11:59 PM
I am thinking to buy this book on Amazon - i think its worth a laugh hehe
Posted by: Fine Dining Bangkok | May 25, 2010 at 03:43 PM
I really liked Sushi and Beyond as well.
My recommendation is another Booth - Alan Booth, a wonderful writer who sadly passed away a while ago but really understood the essence of Japan.
Check out his Roads to Sata.
Posted by: meemalee | May 31, 2010 at 02:39 PM
Hi meemalee - will check out Roads to Sata, thanks for the tip!
Sushi and Beyond has just been nominated for a Guild of Food Writers award - we obviously all have a great taste =)
Posted by: JenJen | June 01, 2010 at 11:00 PM