KAISEKI: Zen Tastes in Japanese Cooking

Tokyo/Kyoto/Palo Alto: Kodansha International Ltd./Tankosh, 1972. Book. Fine. Cloth. First Edition. First Edition, First Printing. Quarto, blue cloth covered boards with yellow title and spine titles. 207 pp. including index, glossary, Notes on Utensils, and list of recipes. Generously illlustrated throughout with 96 full color, full page photographs by Muneori Kuzunishi and Yoshiro Matsuda, of ensembles of the dishes described in each chapter showing the exquisite presentation for which Kaiseki is famous. Kaiseki is a vegetarian, seasonal and highly decorative cuisine developed for serving connected to Cha No Yu or the tea ceremony. Each dish is meant to be in accord with the season in which it is prepared and served as well as being presented in a manner also in accord with the seasons. The gorgeous presentations in the photographs show that Kaiseki presentation is of the highest art and makes the usual punctiliously decorative Japanese food serving look like servings in a school cafeteria. Also illustrated with full page woodcuts prefacing each chapter, by Masakazu Kuwata The dishes are photographed in the lacquerware and ceramics of major Japanese artists in accord with the tradition. A gorgeous book production and as Soshitsu Sen, (Master of the Urasenke School of Tea) notes in his introduction that the elements of Kaiseki ".culminate in the ultimate art of cooking". Thiis is a beautiful collector's copy which has been protected by a mylar dust jacket cover for 30 years. The book is tight, unmarked, fresh and clean with clear undimished titles and absolutely no defects except fot the barest hint of fading at top and bottom board edges and there is some slight dust soiling gathered at the lower front corner of the page edges (not affecting interior). The jacket is similarly, tight, clean, unmarked, unclippped and faultless but for a lentil sized nick at the rear top of the spine. Very Near Fine in a Very Near Fine dust jacket and scarce indeed in this beautiful condition..