The geography of Japan tells you so much about the cuisine. There is a saying that the ideal meal contains something from the sea and something from the mountains. Japan is, after all, one of the world’s largest island nations, consisting of 7,000 islands and nearly 30,000 kilometres of coastline teeming with sea life, while three-quarters of the country is covered in volcanic mountain ranges that run down the archipelago like a spine, leaving what little is left for cities and arable land. Rice has been cultivated since ancient times and this staple, along with fish and tofu, meant there was no need (or room) for meat or dairy – in fact for twelve centuries red meat was even forbidden by Japan’s emperors and only entered the Japanese diet in the late 1800s. Japanese home cooking is also guided largely by
