Shizuo Tsuji (1935-1993) founded the prestigious Tsuji Culinary Institute in Osaka, the largest school training professional chefs in Japan. The author of over 30 books on gastronomy, travel and music, he was a leading figure in the international culinary community. His earlier work published by Kodansha in 1980, Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, was instrumental in popularizing Japanese cuisine in the West. A second edition of Japanese Cooking came out in 2007.
Koichiro Hata, head of the Japanese cookery facilities at the Tsuji Culinary Institute, appears regularly on Japanese television, and is the coauthor of numerous cooking books in Japanese. He teaches and lectures on Japanese food not only in his native land, but abroad as well, most notably in the United States and Thailand.
