Water, Wood, and Wild Things

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 artisans
One 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...