Japan’s Very First Estonian Cookbook
dets. 17, 2021
Estonian Life No. 50 2021
Knowledge of Estonian cuisine is far from universal. When asked what it consists of, one may even be questioned about whether or not it's tasty, depending on how well you explain famous dishes like pickled herring, sült, and verivorstid.
But as of October 20th, 2021, there is a strong foothold for the increased international appreciation of Estonian food. It's in the form of a newly published Japanese-language cookbook titled The Estonian Home Cooking Recipes.
Amid the tremors of enthusiasm shown towards Estonian culture on social media sites like Twitter, where users have shared photos of fresh rye bread and kapsasupp, users have documented the arrival of their copies of the new book. The book has been called “cute and irresistible!” and has been described as something that brings back memories of visiting Estonia.
Bringing this excitement to readers is author and food culture researcher Keiko Sasaki. As detailed in her writing, Sasaki has travelled all over the world; and in Estonia specifically, she sought out instruction from local people to learn about Estonian recipes and flavours.
Perhaps most importantly, she learned how to make traditional Estonian rye bread, using “wild” yeast. In fact, Sasaki notes that rye bread was the prompt for discovering all of the other recipes. She became acquainted with an Estonian family who tried to buy Estonian-style rye bread in Japan….
(Read more: Estonian Life No. 50 2021 paber- and PDF/digi)
Written by Vincent Teetsov, Toronto
