Last year, a gut-wrenching book by Nobuko Iwamura was published by Shinchosha titled "Kazoku no Katte Desho!" ("It's My Kitchen and I'll Do What I Like in It!"). Gut-wrenching because it describes, with the help of 274 highly unpalatable photos, the kinds of breakfasts, lunches and dinners ordinary Japanese people eat at home over a week's time.
The gap in quality, nutrition and presentation between these meals and the ones most people associate with Japanese cuisine is of Grand Canyon proportions.
Iwamura sees the dining table as "a mirror on Japanese family relationships and society." Are Japanese people deluding themselves by holding up such unappetizing daily fare to this mirror and asking, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's got the healthiest cuisine of all?" The assumed answer, of course, still being: "Japan has."