About Actually Japanese

Actually Japanese explains Japanese cooking from Japanese-language primary sources. Many English-language Japanese recipes have drifted from the originals: a substitute that became the standard, a cooking technique that turned into a bottled product, a single region's way of cooking presented as the whole country's. Each article traces what the original is and how the English-language version came to differ.

How the articles are made

• Facts, figures and dates come from Japanese-language sources such as dictionaries, Japanese government agencies, Japanese food manufacturers, and recipes published by Japanese cooks. Every article lists its sources at the end.
• Quotations from Japanese sources are kept short and translated by us.
• Recipes are adapted from named, published Japanese recipes. They are not developed or test-cooked by this site, and each recipe says which source it is based on.
• Where sources disagree, the article says so.
• Articles are checked against their sources before publication.

Units

Ingredients are given in grams and milliliters first, with US measures alongside. Temperatures are given in °F with °C. A Japanese measuring cup is 200 mL and a rice-cooker cup is about 180 mL, so neither is written as a US "cup."

Images

Article header images are generated illustrations, not photographs of dishes cooked by this site.

Contact

Questions and corrections are welcome. See the contact page.