The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Taste and smell are closely linked, so it’s only natural that certain tastes evoke memories just as smells do.  That’s the premise of The Kamogawa Food Detectives, a father and daughter team who specialize in re-creating remembered dishes.  The Kamogawa diner is in a non-descript building with no sign; the only ad reads in its entirety: “Kamogawa Diner—Kamogawa Detective Agency—We find your food.” The ad only runs in one magazine and there is no address or contact information.  It takes a determined client to find the diner; or, as Nagare Kamogawa says, it’s fate.

The book is a collection of stories, each beginning with a customer coming into the Kamogawa diner with information about a dish they would like to have re-created.  The key is in the questioning: the ingredients are important, but the detectives also need to know what was going on in their client’s life at the time in order to successfully fulfill the request.

But it’s about more than the food.  The requested dishes have more to do with a present need in a person’s life than the actual edibles. These are life lessons, served up on a plate. They’re not didactic, because the meaning is tailored to the individual.

These are quiet stories, some of which have a tinge of sadness.  Nagare, a widower and retired police detective, is the chef while his daughter Koishi acts as hostess and interviewer.  The careful questioning teases out details a person may have forgotten or suppressed.  For example in the story “Beef Stew,” a woman remembers only that she ate some sort of soup many years ago but what emerges is a tale of a path not taken.

The stories all have lavish descriptions of Japanese food, most of which I am unfamiliar with, but that is not much of an impediment.  Kashiwai is able to evoke tastes, sensations, and fragrances of the foods to such a degree that I understand them whether or not I’ve ever had the dish.  I also enjoyed the look at Japanese culture from an insider, without someone trying to explain everything to have it make sense from a Westerner’s point of view.

This is the first book of the series, which has been very popular in Japan ever since the first book came out in 2013.  I quite enjoyed this one, and I’m looking forward to reading the second book, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes, when it comes out in the US this October.