Shizuo Tsuji
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| Shizuo Tsuji | |
|---|---|
| Native name | 辻 静雄 |
| Born | February 13, 1933[1][2][lower-alpha 1] Hongō, Tokyo, Japan |
| 💀Died | March 2, 1993 (aged 60) Saitama, JapanMarch 2, 1993 (aged 60) |
| 🎓 Alma mater | Waseda University |
| 💼 Occupation |
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| Known for |
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| 👶 Children | Yoshiki Tsuji (son) |
Shizuo Tsuji (Script error: The function "langx" does not exist.; 13 February 1933 – 2 March 1993) was a Japanese culinary educator and writer. He founded the Tsuji Culinary Institute (辻調理師専門学校) in Osaka, which became the largest institution for training professional chefs in Japan,[4] and wrote Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art (1980), an English-language book on traditional Japanese cuisine.[4][5] He invited French chefs to teach in Japan from 1972 onward; these contacts contributed to the development of nouvelle cuisine.[6]
Early life and education
Tsuji was born in the Hongō district of Tokyo on 13 February 1933, the son of a baker.[1][4][2] He graduated in French literature from Waseda University in Tokyo in 1957 and joined the Osaka office of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper as a reporter.[4][2] While working as a journalist he began studying the history of French cuisine, and, realising that he knew little about the cuisine of his own country, took up the study of Japanese cooking as well.[6] A feature he wrote on Japanese cooking schools prompted his decision to leave journalism and train as a cookery teacher.[4]
Career
In 1960 Tsuji left the newspaper and opened the Tsuji Culinary School in the Abeno district of Osaka.[2][7][lower-alpha 2] Under his direction it expanded into a group of schools that by the early 1990s trained about 4,500 students a year in seventeen schools, offering one-year courses in French, Japanese, and Chinese cooking; its graduates staffed kitchens in France, the United States, and elsewhere.[4] The group later added a confectionery school (1984) and campuses in Osaka (1989) and Tokyo (1991).[2] By the 2010s the group described itself as Japan's largest integrated culinary education institution, with six schools in Osaka, Tokyo, and France and more than 140,000 alumni.[8] Graduates of the schools have earned Michelin stars in Japan and France.[7]
In 1963 Tsuji made the first of a series of research trips to the United States and France, where he met the food writers Samuel Chamberlain and M. F. K. Fisher and, at the restaurant La Pyramide in Vienne, was introduced through Madame Point to the chefs Alexandre Dumaine, André Pick, and Raymond Oliver.[2] In 1972 he invited Paul Bocuse and Jean-Paul Lacombe of Lyon to give the school's first public technical seminar, beginning a programme that brought 65 French chefs to Japan.[2] These exchanges exposed French chefs to Japanese seasonality, smaller portions, and minimalism in presentation, which influenced the nouvelle cuisine movement.[6][9] In 1980 he opened a French campus near Lyon, the Château de l'Éclair at Liergues in the Beaujolais, where graduates of the Osaka schools completed their training in French cooking; a second French campus, the Château Escoffier at Reyrieux, followed in 1989.[4][2][7]
From 1975 to 1992 Tsuji supervised the Japanese television cookery programme Ryōri Tengoku ("Cooking Paradise") on the TBS network, on which the group's instructors appeared.[2]
Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art
Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art was published in English by Kodansha International in 1980 with an introduction by M. F. K. Fisher.[4][10] The book presents about 230 traditional recipes together with chapters on the ingredients, utensils, and techniques of Japanese cuisine, drawing on the years Tsuji spent studying Japanese cooking before turning to France.[4][10] Its jacket carried endorsements from Craig Claiborne, who called Tsuji "a sort of Renaissance man of Japanese and world gastronomy", and from The New York Times, which wrote that the book "does for Japanese cooking what Julia Child did for the French".[10][lower-alpha 3] The New York Times profiled Tsuji and the book in March 1981.[5] A 25th-anniversary edition appeared in 2006 with a new foreword by Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl and a preface by his son Yoshiki Tsuji.[11] The book has remained in print since its first publication.[11]
Tsuji wrote about thirty books on food, travel, and music.[4] His other works in English include Practical Japanese Cooking: Easy and Elegant (1986, with Kōichirō Hata), a photographic presentation of popular Japanese dishes; Publishers Weekly noted its preface encouraging Western cooks to adapt and experiment with the cuisine.[12][13] His Japanese-language books include his first, Furansu ryōri: riron to jissai ("French cuisine: theory and practice", 1964), Furansu ryōri kenkyū ("Studies in French cuisine", 1977), a biography of Auguste Escoffier (1989), a book of conversations with the restaurateur Teiichi Yuki of the Osaka restaurant Kitchō (1983), and a study of Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste (1989).[11][2] He also privately printed a facsimile edition, limited to 500 copies, of Carême's drawings of his pièces montées.[4]
Honours
In 1972 the French government made Tsuji an honorary Meilleur Ouvrier de France, a distinction normally reserved for craftsmen who pass its competitive examination.[4][2] France later appointed him a Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes académiques (1981) and an Officier of the Ordre du Mérite agricole (1989).[2]
Selected works
- Furansu ryōri: riron to jissai (フランス料理 理論と実際, "French cuisine: theory and practice", 1964)[2]
- Furansu ryōri kenkyū (フランス料理研究, "Studies in French cuisine", 1977)[2]
- Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art (1980)[10]
- Kitchō ryōri kaden (吉兆料理花伝, with Teiichi Yuki, 1983)[2]
- Practical Japanese Cooking: Easy and Elegant (1986, with Kōichirō Hata)[12]
- Esukofie: idai naru ryōrijin no shōgai (エスコフィエ 偉大なる料理人の生涯, biography of Auguste Escoffier, 1989)[2]
- Buria-Savaran "Bimiraisan" wo yomu (ブリア‐サヴァラン「美味礼讃」を読む, a study of Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste, 1989)[2]
Personal life and death
In 1958 Tsuji married Katsuko, the daughter of Tokumitsu Tsuji, proprietor of a cooking school in Abeno, Osaka; they had a son, Yoshiki, and two daughters.[4] He collected recordings of Bach and kept a flat in Belgravia, London.[4]
Tsuji died in Saitama on 2 March 1993, aged 60.[4] His son Yoshiki Tsuji left a career in banking to succeed him as head of the school group.[6]
Notes
- ↑ Some publisher biographies give his birth year as 1935,[3] but the Library of Congress authority file, his obituary in The Independent, and the chronologies of the Tsuji culinary schools and the Shizuo Tsuji Culinary Culture Foundation give 1933.[1][4][2]
- ↑ Accounts of the school's origin differ. Paul Levy's obituary in The Independent states that Tsuji expanded a small domestic cookery school belonging to his father-in-law, Tokumitsu Tsuji, who ran a cooking school in the same district of Osaka.[4] The chronology of the Shizuo Tsuji Culinary Culture Foundation records that he opened the school himself in 1960.[2]
- ↑ The jacket endorsements appear on the original 1980 first edition and have been reproduced on subsequent printings.[10][11]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Tsuji, Shizuo, 1933–1993". Library of Congress Name Authority File. Library of Congress. n80049614. Retrieved 2026-07-03.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 "辻静雄について" [About Shizuo Tsuji] (in 日本語). Shizuo Tsuji Culinary Culture Foundation. Retrieved 2026-07-03.
- ↑ Amazon.com author listing gives 1935; the 25th-anniversary edition of Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art also lists 1935 on its jacket.
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 Levy, Paul (9 March 1993). "Obituary: Shizuo Tsuji". The Independent. Retrieved 2026-07-03.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "A Japanese Gastronome and His Secrets". The New York Times. 11 March 1981. p. C1.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Moskin, Julia (3 October 2007). "A New Bouley Restaurant, With a Japanese Teammate". The New York Times.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Beaujolais: l'école Tsuji, pension des futurs grands chefs japonais". L'Express (in français). Agence France-Presse. 29 December 2015. Retrieved 2026-07-03.
- ↑ "The Leaders' Dinner Chefs, Sommelier and supervising group". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. 2019. Retrieved 2026-07-03.
- ↑ Spence, Charles; Piqueras-Fiszman, Betina (2014). "Introduction". The Perfect Meal: The Multisensory Science of Food and Dining. Wiley Blackwell. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-1-118-49082-2.
Indeed, the spirit of nouvelle cuisine—with its emphasis on lightness, purity, and an aesthetic of simplicity—was itself heavily influenced by Japanese culinary traditions, an influence mediated in part by Shizuo Tsuji's culinary school in Osaka.
Search this book on
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 Tsuji, Shizuo (1980). Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art. Kodansha International. ISBN 978-0-87011-399-4. Search this book on
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Tsuji, Shizuo (2006). Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art (25th anniversary ed.). Kodansha International. ISBN 978-1-56836-388-2. Search this book on
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Tsuji, Shizuo; Hata, Kōichirō (1986). Practical Japanese Cooking: Easy and Elegant. Kodansha International. ISBN 978-0-87011-762-6. Search this book on
- ↑ "Practical Japanese Cooking: Easy and Elegant (review)". Publishers Weekly. 1986.
in a lovely preface, Tsuji ... encourages newcomers to make Japanese cookery their own, experimenting, substituting, rearranging without fear that they will violate the spirit of a most adaptable cuisine.
Review retrieved from publishersweekly.com, accessed 2026-07-03.
External links
- Tsuji Culinary Institute Script error: The function "in_lang" does not exist.
- Shizuo Tsuji Culinary Culture Foundation Script error: The function "in_lang" does not exist.
- Shizuo Tsuji at Kotobank Script error: The function "in_lang" does not exist.
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