Minimal cookbook presents Japanese sweet ingredients as colour swatches

Ingredients are displayed like fabric samples to help western readers recreate traditional Japanese sweets with common foods, in this cookbook by designer Moé Takemura. Related story: Meals from Scratch packaging by Jeremy Innes-Hopkins»Despite this variety, the coffee/tea break snack is still limited to European desserts like cookies and cakes. Moé Takemura created Foreign Japanese Sweets as a beginner’s guide to making snacks from the Far East, using ingredients found in western countries. «Many people may not know, but Japanese desserts are often gluten free and vegan friendly,» said the designer. The book suggests suitable substitutes that are easier to obtain from western shops and shows how they can be made into healthy snacks. Ingredients and preparation stages are photographed by Takemura from above, with pans and chopping boards arranged at the same angle in each instance to give the pages a consistent graphic style. «Our food culture is gradually becoming more multicultural, and everyday people enjoy foods such as hamburgers, pizza, pasta and curry,» said Takemura. The recipe book is a follow-up to Takemura’s Guide to the Foreign Japanese Kitchen, created two and a half years ago to show how to make traditional Japanese meals – also edited and printed in Swedish. «The book follows the same aesthetics – it’s simple and clean, and shows step-by-step cooking process,» Takemura said.