Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto [Hardcover]

Victoria Abbott Riccardi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 13, 2003

Two years out of college and with a degree from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, Victoria Riccardi left a boyfriend, a rent-controlled New York City apartment, and a plum job in advertising to move to Kyoto to study kaiseki, the exquisitely refined form of cooking that accompanies the formal Japanese tea ceremony. She arrived in Kyoto, a city she had dreamed about but never seen, with two bags, an open-ended plane ticket, and the ability to speak only sushi-bar Japanese. She left a year later, having learned the language, the art of kaiseki, and what was truly important to her.
Like flower arranging or calligraphy, kaiseki is an age-old Japanese art form. It began as a modest vegetarian meal that Buddhist monks ate in Kyoto’s Zen temples and then developed into a highly symbolic Japanese ritual. Through special introductions and personal favors, Victoria was able to attend one of Kyoto’s most prestigious tea schools, where this art has been preserved for generations and where she was taken under the wing of an American expatriate who became her kaiseki mentor. As a first-hand participant in kaiseki meals and tea ceremonies, she observed the highly choreographed rituals of this extraordinary culinary discipline, absorbing the beauty and subtlety of its myriad details and symbolic gestures.
During her year in Kyoto, Victoria explored the mysterious and rarefied world of tea kaiseki, living a life inaccessible to most foreigners. She befriended a Japanese couple, teaching English at their home-based language school and eventually moving in with them. She spent countless hours with her kaiseki mentor and his partner cooking in their historic Japanese house. Eventually, she even struck up a friendship with a monk when she spent several nights at a secluded Buddhist temple.
She also discovered the beguiling realm of modern-day Japanese food—the restaurants, specialty shops, and supermarkets. She participated in many fast-disappearing culinary customs, including making mochi (chewy rice cakes) by hand, a beloved family ritual barely surviving in a mechanized age. She celebrated the annual cleansing rites of New Year’s, donning an elaborate kimono and obi for a thirty-four-course extravaganza. In her book, she includes twenty-five recipes for favorite dishes she encountered, such as Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl, Japanese Beef and Vegetable Hotpot, and Green-Tea Cooked Salmon Over Rice.
Untangling My Chopsticks is a sumptuous journey into the tastes, traditions, and exotic undercurrents of Japan. It is also a coming-of-age tale steeped in history and ancient customs, a thoughtful meditation on life, love, and learning in another land.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1986, two years out of college and restless at her job with an ad agency, Riccardi left New York to spend a year in Kyoto, where she lived with a Japanese couple and attended an elite school devoted to the study of kaiseki, a highly ritualized form of cooking that accompanies the formal tea ceremony. From her adoptive "family" she learned about Japanese home cooking and Kyoto's food markets. At the kaiseki school, she was introduced to an art form in which everything is symbolic, from the food and utensils to the colors of the guests' kimonos. Immersion in Japanese cuisine taught her about the country's history, culture and art as well as its cooking, so that even a meal in an ordinary restaurant left her feeling that she had "visited a museum, heard a fascinating lecture, opened several gorgeously wrapped gifts, and consumed the essence of spring in Kyoto." In her delightful and unusual culinary memoir she includes 27 recipes. A few, such as summer somen with gingered eggplant, are for dishes she was served at a Zen temple. Some, including miso-pickled romaine stems wrapped with smoked salmon, and red and white miso soup with sea greens, are from kaiseki meals in which she participated. Others, such as chicken and rice egg bowl, "Japan's quintessential comfort food," are representative of everyday fare. Although many of the ingredients used in these recipes are unusual, Riccardi, who writes for such magazines as Eating Well and Bon Appetit, makes them sound worth searching for.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“I relished every page. Victoria Riccardi’s prose reflects the same spirited, nuanced, intelligent style that she discovered on a pilgrimage to the heart of Kyoto’s tea kaiseki cuisine.”
--Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun

“As Victoria Riccardi goes in search of culinary enlightenment in this intimate and beautifully crafted memoir about living, cooking, and falling in love with Kyoto, the reader is seduced and transported by the scenes and flavors she paints with words. Riccardi writes with a sensuous eye for detail that brings alive the extraordinary beauty of Japan and the sumptuous pleasures of its table.”
--Lora Brody, author of Growing Up on the Chocolate Diet

“Victoria Riccardi writes from the heart. A personal story of determination and discovery, Untangling My Chopsticks offers a refreshing glimpse into the tastes, intrigues, and traditions of modern and ancient Japan.”
--Elizabeth Andoh, Japan correspondent, Gourmet magazine, and author of At Home with Japanese Cooking

“Victoria Abbott Riccardi’s Untangling My Chopsticks folds back the screen on a city and its traditions just enough to satisfy our curiosity without diminishing the mysterious allure. Her friendships and experiences are recounted with delightful delicacy, and the kaiseki meal and tea ceremony come alive not only as cultural rites but also as delectable gastronomic and esthetic experiences.”
--Susan Herrmann Loomis, author of On Rue Tatin

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (May 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767908511
• ISBN-13: 978-0767908511
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #515,172 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Travel > Canada > Cities > Victoria

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Discover Japan Through One Woman's Delicious Journey, May 22, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto (Hardcover)

Wow! I loved Untangling My Chopsticks. It is a delicious book from beginning to end. Victoria Abbott Riccardi's beautiful writing style made me feel like I was a part of her journey, discovering the foreign culture, customs and lifestyle of Japan. Through her detailed descriptions she gives the reader a very true sense of the people, the food and the natural beauty of the country. I loved learning about tea kaiseki and the foods that revolve around it. I craved Japanese food as I read the book and was thrilled to discover that each chapter ends with delectable recipes that are quite simple to prepare.
This book has everything I love to read about from travel, to cooking, to history, to love (yes, it is a bit of a love story!). In summary, it is a fantastic book that captures the reader's attention through wisdom, humor and beauty.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't read this while you're hungry!, April 9, 2004

By 

Mark Meyer (Buffalo, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto (Hardcover)

and after you do read it, you'll need to find a Japanese grocer in your city, because you'll be inspired to hunt all over for soba sauce and azuki bean paste.

What a delight this book is! It veritably sparkles like diamonds and rubies, and in fact she compares tea kaiseki with jewels.

I borrowed a copy from a friend to read, but now I'm inspired to buy my own copy so I can re-savor it and also contribute to Victoria's royalties. She deserves so much for this splendid book.

Her insights into the spirituality of food, even simple things like wrapping packages carefully like the Japanese do, make it a book that you can apply to your daily life, even if you never attend a tea ceremony.

My *ONLY* gripe, and I really hate to say this, is that her connection with Zen Buddhism was tenuous. She does go to Mount Hiei toward the end of the book and tries to sit with the monks, but she spends a lot more time talking about recipes again. But really that's okay because her main emphasis is not to meditate until satori, but to appreciate the food connection.

I can't think of anyone who would not fall in love with this book! Thank you, Bi-cu-to-ri-ha! (That's Japanese for her name, as heard from the lips of children.)

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life lessons learned & ritual-imbued meals cooked & eaten, May 19, 2003

By 

christine piccin (santa rosa, ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto (Hardcover)

Three culinary trends today include drinking green tea, dining on meals composed of many small dishes, and exploring exotic gastronomic customs. I just read a book that brings those three together beautifully. It's called Untangling My Chopsticks, A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto, by Victoria Riccardi.
Trained in Western culinary tradition and a veteran of a Parisian restaurant kitchen, Riccardi was on the classic culinary track. Until an employee of the Japan Society in New York mentioned kaiseki to her, that is. Victoria's trip to Japan to learn about kaiseki changed her life as her Cordon Bleu training never would.
Kaiseki, I learned, is an elegant, ritualistic cuisine, a degustation of small, seasonal dishes, which developed in Zen monasteries to accompany the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. From page one Riccardi plunged me into exotic Kyoto, the acknowledged birthplace of kaiseki, with tales of her new home dubbed the "bedroom of eels," and her first meal, in a neon-yellow-splashed restaurant under the Kyoto train station. Her story unveils Japanese culture, taste, and tradition in prose that sparkles like the morning sun on a breeze-rippled pond.
Before Untangling my Chopsticks, my knowledge of Japanese food culture could be summed up in a paragraph, the one dubbed "sushi etiquette" sometimes printed on the back of American sushi menus. The story of Victoria's sojourn was like a gift to me: lush with details of friendships forged, life-changing lessons learned, and deeply symbolic, ritual-imbued meals cooked and eaten. It opened my mind.