Water, Wood & Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town (Hannah Kirshner)

Paperback Edition An immersive journey through the culture and cuisine of one Japanese town, its forest, and its watershed — where ducks are hunted by net, saké is brewed from the purest mountain water, and charcoal is fired in stone kilns--by an American writer and food stylist who spent years working alongside artisansOne night, Brooklyn-based artist and food writer Hannah Kirshner received a life-changing invitation to apprentice with a "saké evangelist" in a misty Japanese mountain village called Yamanaka. In a rapidly modernizing Japan, the region — a stronghold of the country's old-fashioned ways — was quickly becoming a destination for chefs and artisans looking to learn about the traditions that have long shaped Japanese culture. Kirshner put on a vest and tie and took her place behind the saké bar. Before long, she met a community of craftspeople, farmers, and foragers — master woodturners, hunters, a paper artist, and a man making charcoal in his nearly abandoned village on t