It started with a bowl of udon. Elizabeth Andoh, recognized expert on washoku and contributor to Gourmet magazine for over 30 years, cannot really discern a logical path to her success in the Japanese Epicurean kitchen.
Andoh was a university student, embarking on an intensive language training course in Tokyo when confronted with the fateful udon. After two months on the island of Shikoku — her first experience in Japan — she could hardly believe that the unappetizing mass served at the university shokudo (cafeteria) could be the same food. "After tasting that fabulous udon my future mother-in-law made and the garbage that went under the same name at the cafeteria, I thought, how could this be? What is there about preparing food that can do this?"
Andoh, with the eye of an artist and the hands of a surgeon — she comes from a family of doctors — found both her creative and intellectual sides engaged with this conundrum.