The long and storied history of food manga has been pretty lengthy in Japan. But with recent titles like Food Wars, Piacevole, and Sweetness & Lightning coming to the West, it’s growing over here as well. Recently Helen checked out Delicious in Dungeon, and it is kind of a favorite within the manga group we got here.
This somehow led to a suggestion of sharing our favorite food manga. Well, a few of us were game to do so! So below, Justin, Helen, and Alcina explain what food manga is a favorite of theirs, and if there’s one we’d like to make/try at some point. Feel free to share either your favorite manga, or favorite recipe from a manga, or both, in the comments section below.
TheOASG’s Favorite Food Manga
Alcina
Favorite Food Manga: My favourite food manga is Oishinbo. It’s not as light or humorous as the other food manga I have read, but it really sticks out in my mind. The black and white pages accurately depict the food, and draws you in with the pictures. You envy the characters and the writer, as the food described and illustrated looks sooo delicious. I really enjoyed the volume about izakayas, that was my first introduction to pub food. Speaking of which, I still need to go pick up What Did You Eat Yesterday? Sometime.
Food I would most like to try from a manga: I would like to make Gohei Mochi from Sweetness & Lightning, as it’s both sweet and grilled. All those sesame seeds!
Justin
Favorite Food Manga: With this, I have no doubt. Though you could also call it being biased, I have to go with the first cooking manga that I read that predates Food Wars in absolute craziness — Iron Wok Jan. Pit two generally angry chefs that are each good at everything and make them fight it out Iron Chef style, and you get an extremely hilarious cooking manga that I wish someone…anyone…would bring back today so I can actually finish the manga!
Food I would most like to make from a manga: This is difficult because there’s a decent amount of manga that feature great food. But I’ll keep it simple: seafood is great. And how can your mouth not water at a French Curry Lobster Rice with Cognac from Food Wars? Curry, lobster and rice is hard to beat. Whether I’ll ever have (or can try and make) it is unknown, but I would if it was possible for sure.
Helen
Favorite food manga: I’m torn between Kitchen Princess and Antique Bakery. On the one hand, Kitchen Princess is a bit of a shoujo mess of over melodrama but, aside from one or two more egregious plot twists, it was a fun manga to indulge in. Also melodramatic, but less so, is Antique Bakery where I really enjoyed the well-thought-out characters and their relationships. Funny enough, both of these series are primarily about baking sweets but I’m more of a cook than a baker myself!
Food I would most like to try from a manga: The Huge Scorpion and Walking Mushroom Hot Pot from Delicious in Dungeon looks, well, delicious! I should be nervous about the sheer number of weird ingredients that are going into it but it really does look tasty!