cook books and dictionaries

[Anonymous]

I want to cook Japanese food while i'm in Japan, unfortunately I only read English. what is the title of a good traditional japanese cookbook I can buy in canada to take with me ??

also What is the best Japanese-english/english-japanese dictionary to take (are the electronic ones realy better?)

thanks for your time !!

Corvus

[trip_hop]

I like Japanese Cooking for Health and Fitness by Kiyoko Konishi - pub Gakken. Lots of light food, glossary of terms, meal planning etc., and in English. Available in Japan, along with 5-6 other English language books, and a couple of coffee table picture books (tomes)

E>J Try Kenkyusha's furigana E-J Dictionary - good up to date vocabulary, and furigana over the difficult kanji, so you can spell them on a computer or pronounce them.

J>E I personally use Spahn Hadamitzky Kanji Dictionary - though others use Halpern - matter of personal preference.

2 handy ones are Takahashi's pocket sized Romanized E-J and J-E dictionary. E-J 10,000 words, J-E 24,000 words, all in romajii. separate books so easy to cross reference. I don't like combo books. Publsihed by Taiseido.

Electronic - have an old Seiko Instruments IC Dictionary from 1988 - still works, though Canon, Sony and Casio all have modern versions. Fine Kanji are sometime hard to read, the definitions are a bit odd at times, and the navigation can be cumbersome.

Have fun

Trip Hop (Ms.)

[Anonymous]

thank you

corvus

[Anonymous]

You can also get plenty of Japanese cookbooks (in english) in the bookstores here. I bought Stone Soup, a book of simple, traditional Japanese cooking, at Kinokuniya, and have used it alot. It's especially useful because it also lists the ingredients in Japanese, so you can take it with you to the store and decode some of the products, or get a salesperson to help you.

[VanKen]

Yesterday, I picked up a copy of "Japanese Cooking" by Emi Kazuko. Found it at The Bay in Richmond, BC. Hardcover, 9"x12", 256 pages. I already have several Japanese cookbooks, but this one really impressed me. Lots of colour photos and easy-to-follow directions. To top it off, the book was on sale!

Good luck in finding something you like!