#000607
The Heart of Zen Cuisine
Soei Yoneda
A refined introduction to shojin ryori, the vegetarian temple cooking of Japanese Zen Buddhism, written by Soei Yoneda, abbess of the Sanko-in temple in Tokyo. Drawing on a tradition roughly six centuries old, the book presents cooking as an extension of Zen practice — attentive, seasonal, and unshowy — organized around elegant principles like the six tastes, the five cooking methods, and the five colors that should appear in a balanced meal. The recipes lean on the freshest vegetables, fruits, and sea plants, refined enough historically to have pleased visiting members of the imperial family yet rooted in simplicity and restraint. Beautifully illustrated and clearly explained, it works both as a practical cookbook and as a window onto a contemplative way of relating to food. It was earlier published as *Good Food from a Japanese Temple*.
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The author
Soei Yoneda (1913–1982) was the abbess of Sanko-in, a Tokyo temple known for its shojin cuisine, and spent years studying and refining this vegetarian cooking tradition. She writes as a practitioner for whom cooking is inseparable from Zen discipline, which gives the book its distinctive blend of the practical and the contemplative. The English edition was prepared with translators and includes an introduction by the writer Robert Farrar Capon.
The book
Published by Kodansha International (and earlier titled Good Food from a Japanese Temple), it lays out the principles of shojin ryori — the six tastes, five methods, and five colors — alongside seasonal recipes for a wholly plant-based cuisine.
How it reads
As both cookbook and cultural document. Some ingredients and techniques assume access to a Japanese pantry, so a few recipes take effort to source, but the explanations of philosophy and method are lucid and the aesthetic sensibility is a large part of the pleasure. It remains a respected reference on Buddhist temple cooking.
For more context
Broader writing on shojin ryori and Japanese vegetarian traditions extends the subject.
Sources - The Heart of Zen Cuisine — ckbk - The Heart of Zen Cuisine — Internet Archive
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Soei Yoneda
- Publisher
- Kodansha International
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Craft & How-to
- Location
- Colorado