The Kamogawa Food Detectives

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: The Kamogawa Food Detectives is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese series for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?

Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason customers stop by . . .

The father-daughter duo are ‘food detectives’. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories—dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes show more provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.

A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I ignored the warning signs...the c-a-t on the cover, the call-out to Before the Coffee Gets Cold which is a dreadful, condescending farrago...and paid the price: I just do not like "international bestsellers" because if they appeal to that many people they'll make me queasy with insulin poisoning.

I hated it. But I read it. I wanted the lingering possibility of evoking my 1964 birthday cake, a caramel doberge cake my mother bought to make up for forgetting to make one herself.

Fail. I was annoyed and irked by turns...but y'all'll eat it up (!), I bet, hence the two stars.

If I'd spent Putnam's $25 for a hardcover I'd be frothing bloodily at the mouth and nose. show less

So delightful!

Talk about food for the soul! An out of the way, humble diner in Kyoto that serves up the most wonderful traditional Japanese meals. The place is not easy to locate. There’s no signs or directions. You really have to want to find it. Nagare Kamogawa and his daughter Koishi run the small eating house. Nagare is the chef, Koishi waits tables. On the detecting side of the business, Koishi takes down the information for people who are searching for how a particular dish from their memory is cooked. Nagare is the detective. All the client has to go on is a one line advertisement in the Gourmet Monthly magazine. At the end of each case Koishi and Nagare ask their client to pay into an account how much their solving of the case show more was worth to them. Nagare cooks the dish the client has sought.
People come to find the dish their mother might have cooked, the meal they remember as a child with their grandfather, a myriad of unusual requests.
The dishes are sublime. I’m spending an inordinate amount of time looking them up (in my own cookbooks and online) The dishes are served on designated plates and types of pottery ware from all around Japan. I’ve also been looking some of those up in my fav. Japanese tableware shop.
This is just such a wonderfully encouraging read. You can feel the texture of the dishes arrayed, almost taste them. The color and movement, the descriptions of places I’ve visited are so evocative. Swoon worthy! The people find understanding, warmth and friendship. Some return.
A startling, yet humbly sumptuous read that made me long for such a place.

A Putnam ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher. show less

Weirdly, the thing this book reminds me the most of is a well loved copy of Guy de Maupassant's short stories that I read in my teens. I love the enthralling sense of place and seasons. I love the ritualistic repetitions at the beginning and end of each story, as the travelers arrive and depart and interact with Drowsy the cat. I love how this travels through Japan in many times and places without leaving the restaurant, and I love the nostalgia it evokes. Peaceful, immersive, and enraptured by food.

****.5

After my disappointing experience with the structurally similar What You Are Looking For Is in the Library, I was delighted by this one. There are the same six chapters, but this time rather than books the focus is on food. Specifically, nostalgia for a specific dish that the character once ate and has been unable to find again. There is a lot of loss and regret, missed opportunities and reminiscence, but it's poignant and moving rather than sappy or morose.

The loving attention to the details of the food really elevate the story-telling, and provide a fascinating insight into both Japanese cuisine, and the way that memories can be colored by our current attitudes.

“The Kamogawa Food Detectives” by Hisashi Kashiwai is a nice book, but I will not go beyond the word, ‘nice,’ and term the book terrific.
Deep in the lanes of Kyoto is the Kamogawa Diner, run by a father and daughter duo. The father is a widower, an ex-cop, and the main chef and detective. People visiting the diner for the first time get served a set menu and can choose what they want once they become regular patrons.
Most first-timers – at least the first-timers in the book – come searching because they want the detectives to recreate a dish that reminds them of the past, someone they used to know, or a memory they wish to recreate.
Many cannot give proper details of the dish they wish to recreate, having only dim memories show more or recollections of past events and dishes they want to relive.
Once the daughter completes the interview, the father sets out to investigate. He is successful in all the stories the book contains. They need two weeks, on average, to complete the case.
The stories speak of memories and nostalgia, and the father’s investigations sometimes result in the patrons reassessing their past relationships and attitudes toward those they left behind. In some cases, the father gives the patron the recipe so that they can cook the dish for the ones they love.
The stories are interesting, but I felt that the author did not go deep enough to explore the human aspect of the stories behind the remembered dishes. Hisashi Kashiwai focused on the investigative aspects without going too deep yet missed the emotive elements.
While the book is good, I believe there is an opportunity to elevate the following books in the series to greatness. show less

Moving and deliciously cozy, The Kamogawa Food Detectives shows that a meal is never just a meal: it can be both the window to a long-forgotten past and the key to a more fulfilling future.

The book centers on the Kamogawa Diner, housed in a nondescript building along the backstreets of Kyoto. Run by Nagare Kamogawa and his daughter, Koishi, the diner provides delectable meals, along with a unique service for their customers… The two are culinary detectives, recreating special dishes from a person’s memory through painstakingly detailed investigations.

Each chapter is its own vignette, detailing a meal that the father-daughter duo recreate for an inquiring customer of the Kamogawa Diner–from beef stew to tonkatsu to Napolitan show more spaghetti. Fair warning: do not read these on an empty stomach. The descriptions of the meals are mouth-watering and lush, often weaving a story of nostalgia into the ingredients and the way the dishes are prepared, pulling the reader even further into the story until their stomach rumbles with each turn of the page. Underneath the nostalgia and aromatic cuisine, the customers of the Kamogawa Diner find something remarkable: comfort, wisdom, or closure.

Perfect for fans of cozy literary fiction and magnificent food writing, this books is–at its heart–a love letter to the relationship between food, memory, and the power of human connection. show less

I received an advance copy via NetGalley.

This work of translation is a unique kind of mystery book made up of a sequence of short story "cases." If someone is seeking a memorable restaurant food from decades ago, or a re-creation of their long-dead mother's soup recipe, they go to the food detectives in their tucked-away shop that is almost impossible to find. The father and daughter duo therein use the scant clues provided by the client to re-create the long-lost food.

Now, many of the clues involves minute details from Japanese culture and geography. These aren't mysteries that an ignorant American like myself could solve, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment at all because the logic is explained beautifully. Plus, the food is show more described in luscious detail. This is a dangerous book to eat while hungry! show less