Book Review: ‘The Meaning of Rice: And Other Tales from the Belly of Japan’ by Michael Booth

Michael Booth and his family embark on an epic journey the length of Japan to explore its dazzling food culture.

If this book were food it would have deep umami undertones. Michael Booth has written yet another intriguing account of food, cooking and Japanese cuisine in Japan as an accompaniment to his earlier and just as his readable companion piece ‘Sushi and Beyond: What the Japanese Know about Cooking’; a main course to his earlier amuse-bouche.

We re-join him ten years after his first book on a return trip to Japan with his family to explore some of the elements of Japanese cuisine left unexplored a decade earlier. Though at first not as liberally sprinkled with the tongue in cheek humour as ‘Sushi and Beyond’ Booth warms to his

Interview: Michael Booth Author Sushi and Beyond: What the Japanese Know About Cooking

“I can’t walk down the streets of Japan without finding something unusual or peculiar. It’s just so stimulating.” – Michael Booth

Award winning food writer and traveller Michael Booth (author of the bestselling Sushi & Beyond: What the Japanese Know About Cooking) attended the popular three-day J-Culture festival Hyper Japan 2015 (photo report here), which was held at London’s O2 on 10-12 June, to participate in his first talk show with Japanese celebrity chef Rika Yukimasa, co-host of