Oishinbo, Volume 5 – Vegetables by Tetsu Kariya

I now know more about vegetables then I ever expected to. As much fun as these books have been, I think this one was my least favorite. There was much, and I mean MUCH preaching in the stories about pesticides and herbicides and the stories were… a little over the top with the exaggeration aspect.

Still, there was a moment in the book that had me cracking up. Yamaoka has been called into the office by his boss to look at a huge pile of books that have been spread over the table. The assignment is to go through the pile of books and find the best books about food. Yamaoka takes one look at the pile and, as usual, his mouth gets him into trouble. He says:

Food is meant to be eaten – not read. Your stomach doesn’t get full from just reading books about food. It’s only annoying to read about how other people are eating good stuff. And it’s not like it’ll enrich your spirit if you deny the fact you get annoyed by reading it either.”

I laughed, and laughed some more reading that part. It’s not often you find a portion of a book you are reading criticizing its very subject matter. But it’s true! As much as I love reading about the culture and food of Japan, I have the desire to taste and sample even more.

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