The art of cooking as an exploration of the self

Yuzuki Asako, «Butter», Harper Collins 2024

Can an interview with a serial swindler, who has been accused of murdering men she used to accompany after cooking for them and today locked up in a Tokyo prison, change the life of the journalist who managed to get an interview by a ruse? This is what happened to Rika, a journalist for a men’s magazine, and the only woman in her workplace. She is often treated like a secretary, when not worse still. Rika works day and night and all she manages to cook when she gets home late is pre-packaged ramen. During their meetings, which are more akin to a cooking masterclass than a journalistic investigation, it seems that it is the reporter herself who changes. With each meal she prepares and consumes, something awakens in her body and she discovers in food a liberating pleasure. Butter, the inmate’s favourite ingredient, is a metaphor that allows the author a vivid and disturbing exploration of misogyny, obsession and the transgressive pleasure of food in a Japan where women must always please men and never themselves. The book, inspired by the news case of the con artist and serial killer “The Konkatsu Killer”, was nominated for Japan’s top Naoki Prize.

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