The Japanese Pantry: From sake to soy, essential ingredients for Japanese home cooking (Emiko Davies)

The Japanese Pantry is a follow-up to Gohan: Everyday Japanese Cooking | Memories and Stories From My Family’s Kitchen, Davies’s tribute to her mother’s family and her soul food—Japanese home cooking.

In The Japanese Pantry, Davies explores the pantry items essential to Japanese home cooking—simple, easy-to-find ingredients that can be combined with fresh produce and a few other basics like tofu, rice, and noodles to create delicious and authentic Japanese food no matter where you are.

Each chapter explores one of these essential ingredients—soy sauce, miso, rice vinegar, seaweed, sake, sesame, and tea—including information about the history and production of these in Japan, as well as Davies’s thoughtful and approachable recipes. In helping readers get to know these pantry essentials, Davies hopes to give home cooks the confidence to make authentic Japanese dishes that are inherently simple and full of flavor.